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THE LIBRARY

OF

THE UNIVERSITY

OF CALIFORNIA

LOS ANGELES

Jane Oglander

By

Mrs. Belloc Lowndes

" Something even more imperious than reason ad-
monishes us that life's inmost secret lies not in the
slow adaptation of man to circumstance, but in his
costly victories and splendid defeats."

New York

Charles Scribner's Sons
191 1

Copyright, 191 1, by
Charles Scribner's Sons

Published April, 191 1

C?(?

L f^-Vja

Jane Oglander

JANE OGLANDER

PROLOGUE

" Elle fut n^e pour'plaire aux nobles imes,'
Pour les consoler un peu d'un monde impur."

Jane Oglander was walking across Westminster
Bridge on a late September day.

It was a little after four o'clock — on the bridge
perhaps the quietest time of the working day — but
a ceaseless stream of human beings ebbed to and
fro. She herself came from the Surrey side of the
river, and now and again she stayed her steps and
looked over the parapet. It was plain — or so
thought one who was looking at her very atten-
tively— that she was more interested in the Surrey
side, in the broken line of St. Thomas's Hospital,
in the grey-red walls of Lambeth Palace and the
Lollards' Tower, than in the mass of the Parliament
buildings opposite.

But though Miss Oglander stopped three times
in her progress over the bridge, she did not stay
at any one place for more than a few moments —
not long enough to please the man who had gradu-
ally come up close to her.

I

2 JANE OGLANDER

Having first noticed her in front of the bridge
entrance of St. Thomas's Hospital, this man had
made it his business to keep, if well behind, then
in step with her.

A human bemg — and especially a woman — may
be described in many ways. For our purpose it
was fortunate that on this eventful afternoon of
her life Miss Oglander happened to attract the at-
tention of an observer, who, if then living in great
penury and solitude, was yet destined to become
what a lover of literature has described as the
greatest interpreter of the human side of London
life since Dickens,

When he was not writing, this man — whose
name, by the way, was Ryecroft, and whose mis-
fortune it was to be temperamentally incapable of
sustained, wage-earning work — spent many hours
walking about the London streets studying the hu-
man side of London's traffic, and especially that
side which to a certain type of observer, of saun-
terer in the labyrinth, is full of ever recurring
mystery and charm. He wrote of the depths, be-
cause the depths were all he knew, with an intimate
and a terrible knowledge. But he had your true
romancer's craving for romance, and his eager face
with its curiously high, straight forehead crowned
with a shock of rather long auburn hair, was the
face and head of the idealist, of the humourist, and
— now that he is dead, why not say so? — of the
lover, of the man that is to whom the most interest-

JANE OGLANDER 3

ing thing in the world remains, when all is said and
done, — woman, and man's pursuit, not necessarily
conquest, of the elusive creature.

Ryecroft had been already on Westminster
Bridge for some time before he became aware that
a feminine figure of more than common distinction
and interest, a young lady whose appearance and
light buoyant step sharply differentiated her from
those about her, was walking toward him. As he
saw her his eyes lighted up with a rather pathetic
pleasure, and in an instant he had become sensi-
tively aware of every detail of her dress. She wore
a plain grey coat and skirt, and a small hat of
which the Mercury wings, to the whimsical fellow
watching her, evoked the Hellas of his dreams. A
black and white spotted veil, which, as was then
the fashion, left the wearer's delicately cut sensi-
tive mouth bare, shadowed her hazel eyes.

Ryecroft noticed — he always saw such things —
that the young lady wore odd gloves, the one on
her right hand was light grey, that clothing her
left moleskin in colour. The trifling fact pleased
him. It showed, or so he argued with himself,
that this sweet stranger had a soul above the usual
pernickety vanities of young womanhood.

For a moment their eyes met, and he admired
the gentle, not unkind indifference with which she
received his eager, measuring glance.

In a sense, Jane Oglander never saw at all the
man who was gazing at her so intently, and he

4 JANE OGLANDER

never saw her again, but for some moments — per-
haps for as long as half an hour — this singular and
gifted being felt himself to be in sensitive, even
close, sympathy with her, and in his emotional
memory she henceforth occupied a niche labelled
" The Lady of Westminster Bridge."

Ryecroft allowed Miss Oglander to pass by him,
and then quietly and very unobtrusively he fol-
lowed her; stopping when she stopped, following
the direction of her eyes, trying as far as might
be to think her thoughts, and meanwhile weaving
in his mind a portrait of her having as little re-
lation to reality as has a woodland scene in tapestry
to a real sun and shadow-filled glade.

" Here," he said to himself, " is a girl who is
assuredly not accustomed to walking the more pop-
ulous thoroughfares of London by herself. Were
she quite true to type she would be what they
called * chaperoned ' by a lady's maid, that is by a
woman who would be certainly aware that I was
following them, and who would probably take my
attention for herself. A dozen men might follow
this young lady and she would not be aware of
their proximity. There is something about her of
Una, but Una so completely protected by a quality
in herself, and by her upbringing and character,
that she has no need of a lion.

" For me she holds a singular appeal, because
she is unlike the only woman I ever have the chance
of meeting, and because we, that gentle, austerely

JANE OGLANDER 5

attractive creature and I, have much in com-
mon. Effortless she has achieved all that I long
for and that I know I shall never obtain — intel-
lectual distinction in those she frequents, the satis-
faction attendant on proper pride, and doubtless,
in her daily life, refined beauty of surroundings.
She is very plainly dressed, but that is because she
has a delicate and elevated taste, and happily be-
longs to that small, privileged class which is able
to pay the highest price, and so command the best
type of gown, the prettiest shoes, the best fitting
gloves — even if she wears them odd — and the most
becoming hat.

" But what has Una been doing on the Surrey
side of the Thames ? "

Ryecroft smiled; he thought the answer to his
question obvious.

" She has been " — he went on, talking to him-
self, and forming the words with his lips, for he
was a very lonely man — " to St. Thomas's Hos-
pital, either to see some friend who is in the paying
ward, or to visit a poor person in whom she is —
to use the shibboleth of Mayfair — ' interested.' It
is a more or less new experience, and though she
is evidently in a hurry, she cannot help lingering
now and again, thinking over the strange, dread-
ful things with which she has, doubtless for the first
time, now come in contact. She doesn't care for
the Houses of Parliament — they represent to her
the thing she knows, for she often takes part in

6 JANE OGLANDER

that odd rite, ' Tea on the Terrace/ But she is
timorously attracted to the other side — to the dark,
to the pregnant side of life. And above all what
fascinates her is the river — the river itself, at once
so like and so unlike the Thames she knows above
Richmond where she goes boating with her broth-
ers' friends, with the young men with whom she
seems on such intimate terms and of whom she
knows so extraordinarily little, and who treat her,
very properly, as something fragile, to be cared for,
respected. . . ."

When she reached the end of the bridge, after
looking to the right and to the left, the young
lady walked across the roadway with an assured
step, and Ryecroft's eager, sensitive face bright-
ened. This was in the picture, the picture he had
drawn and coloured with his own pigments. " For
this kind of young Englishwoman the traffic stops
instinctively of itself," he said to himself; " and she
has no fear of being run over " (perhaps it should
be added, that this little one-sided adventure of
Henry Ryecroft's took place before the advent of
the trams). And still he followed, keeping close
behind her. Suddenly she turned toward the
Underground Railway, and this annoyed him; he
had hoped that she (and he) would walk down
Great George Street, across the two parks, and so
into old Mayfair.

As an alternative he had promised himself the
pleasure of seeing her get into a hansom-cab. Were

JANE OGLANDER 7

she to disappear into the ugly gulf of the Under-
ground it would disappoint him unreasonably. But
stop! She had turned her back on the cavernous
entrance to the station and she was gazing down
at the posters of the evening papers.

The placards were all emblazoned with the
same piece of news, differently worded : " General
Lingard in London," " Reception of Lingard at
Victoria," " Return of a Famous Soldier."

Ryecroft's lip curled. He had an intellectual
contempt for the fighting man as such, and a hor-
ror, nay a loathing, of war. He knew what even
a brief and successful war means to those among
whom his own lot was cast, the London woman
whose son, whose brother, whose lover is so often
called Thomas Atkins.

And now, at last, he heard his lady's voice. She
beckoned to the smallest and most ragged of the
lads selling newspapers : —

" I want all to-night's papers : " her voice fell
with an agreeable cadence on Ryecroft's ears. He
was singularly susceptible to the cadences of the
human voice, and he thought he had never heard
a sweeter. She took a shilling out of her purse,
and, rather to his surprise, he saw that her purse
was small, black and worn.

*' How much ? " she asked gently.

The boy hesitated, and then answered, " Five-
pence halfpenny."

She handed him a shilling. " You can keep the

8 JANE OGLANDER

change," she said, and a very charming smile quiv-
ered across her face, " for yourself."

The man who was watching her felt touched — •
unreasonably moved. " Thank God," he said to
himself, " that, unlike many of her friends, she has
nothing to do with the C.O.S. ! "

Then to Ryecroft's surprise, instead of going on
as he expected her to do — he had already made up
his mind that she was taking the papers home to
an invalid father, or to a brother who had hurt
himself in one of those mad games in which, as
the watcher knew well, the young English oligarch
delights to spend his spare time — the young lady
turned, and crossed over again on to the bridge,
but this time she chose the other side, the side
which commands the more beautiful view of the
London river.

" Dear me," he said to himself, " the plot thick-
ens ! " and then he suddenly told himself that of
course she was going back to the hospital. The
person she was going to see had asked for an
evening paper, and in her generosity she had bought
them all.

But on the bridge she stayed her steps, and,
opening one of the papers, spread it out against
the parapet, and began eagerly reading it, unheed-
ing of the human stream flowing to and fro be-
hind her.

Ryecroft gently approached closer and closer to
her, and at last he was able to see what it was she

JANE OGLANDER 9

was bending over and reading with such intent-
ness : " General Lingard's Home-coming."
" Splendid Reception at Victoria Station." So was
the column headed, and already her eyes had trav-
elled down to the last paragraph :

" To conclude : by his defeat of the great
Mahomedan Emir of Bobo, General Lingard
has added to the British Crown another mag-
nificent jewel in the Sultanate of Amadawa."

Then came a cross-head — " Pen Portrait."

((

Lingard is above all things a fighter. His
eye is keen, alert, passionless. He is a tall
man, and he dominates those with whom he
stands. His life as a soldier has been from
the beginning a wooing of peril, and as a
result he has commanded a victorious expedi-
tion at an age when his seniors are hoping
to command a regiment. He does not talk as
other men talk — he is no teller of ' good
stories.' He is a Man."

Jane Oglander looked up, and there came a glow
— a look of proud, awed gladness on her face.

Then, folding the paper, she walked steadily on.
But though she crossed over the bridge as if she
were going to the hospital, to the side entrance
where visitors are admitted, she walked on past the
mass of buildings. Then she turned sharply to the
left, Ryecroft still following, till she came to a
small row of houses, respectable, but poor and mean

10 JANE OGLANDER

in appearance, in a narrow street which was re-
deemed to a certain extent by the fact that there
was a Queen Anne church at one end of it, and
next to the church a substantial rectory or vicar-
age house. To Ryecroft's measureless astonish-
ment, she opened her purse, took out a latch-key
and let herself into the front-door of one of the
small houses. . . .

Three weeks later Henry Ryecroft happened to
be in that same neighbourhood, and he suddenly
remembered his Lady of Westminster Bridge.
Greatly daring — but he ever loved such daring — he
rang at the door of the house at which he had seen
her go in,

A typical Londoner of the liard-working, self-
respecting class answered his ring. She stood for
a moment looking at him, waiting for him to speak.

"Is the lady in?" he asked, feeling suddenly
ashamed and foolish. " I mean the young lady
who lives here."

" Miss Oglander? " said the woman. " No, she's
away. But I'll give you her address."

She handed him a piece of paper on which was
written in what he thought was a singularly pretty

handwriting : —

Miss Oglander,
Rede Place,
Redyford,
Surrey.

He took the little piece of paper and walked
away. When he found himself on the bridge he

JANE OGLANDER ii

dropped the paper into the river. " Oglander," he
said to himself, " a curious, charming name, rhym-
ing with Leander, philander " he shook his

head and smiled, " no, no, not philander," he said,
speaking the words aloud. " Lavender, that's what
her name should rhyme to, — Lavender. . . ."

Henry Ryecroft, in his way a philosopher, would
have been at first gently amused, and then per-
haps moved and interested, had he known both how
right and how wrong had been the kitcat portrait
he had evolved out of his inner consciousness.

He had been right as to the type. He had even
been successful in realizing something of Miss
Oglander's inward mind and character from her
outward appearance, but he had been quite wrong
as to the present circumstances of her life.

It was true that she belonged to the privileged
class who alone in the seething world of London
have the command of money, and also the com-
mand, materially speaking, of the best. But if
born and bred in the west of London, she now
belonged by deliberate choice to the south side of
the Thames. At a moment when she desired to
hide herself from the world, she had chosen that
ugly, formless district of London which lies be-
tween Westminster Bridge and Vauxhall Bridge
because a distant relation of her mother's had mar-
ried a clergyman whose parish lay there, and he
had offered to find her in that parish plenty of hard
work to still her pain.

12 JANE OGLANDER

As a young girl, Jane Oglander had lived the
life that Ryecroft imagined her to be living now.
While keeping house for a bachelor brother, she
had seen, from a pleasantly sheltered standpoint,
all that v^as most agreeable and amusing in the
cultivated London world. Treated with the gen-
tle gallantry and respect Ryecroft had supposed
by her brother's friends, she was — as is so often
the case with a young woman who has been al-
most entirely educated by men and surrounded
with masculine influences — graver, less frivolous,
more austerely refined than were most of her con-
temporaries.

Her nature, the core of her, was happy, tender,
sensitive, capable also of a depth of feeling — and
feeling always implies a certain violence — unsus-
pected by those round her. Thanks to the cir-
cumstances of her birth and upbringing Jane Og-
lander might conceivably have lived a long benefi-
cent life, and have finally slipped out of that life
without becoming aware that there were such tragic
things as sin, shame, and acute suffering in the
world.

Humility was not lacking to one endowed with
many of the other endearing graces. Jane Og-
lander was very conscious of the lack in herself of
those practical qualities which make their fortunate
possessors ever punctual and unforgetful of the
minor duties of life. She would forget to answer
unimportant letters, mistake the hour of unessen-

JANE OGLANDER 13

tial invitations, arrive late for trains, and, as we
have seen, tempt gifts her way by putting on odd
articles of clothing which her wiser friends always
wore in pairs.

But she was never found lacking in that beauti-
ful quality which the French call la politesse du
cceur. Thus, her mental lapses were never of a
nature to hurt the feelings or the pride of those
whose feelings and whose pride are often regarded
by people more fortunate in a material sense than
themselves as so unimportant as to be probably
non-existent.

First her father, and then her brother, had been
instinctively careful that she should only know the
best of life. They had preserved her with firm de-
cision from any of those influences which might
have injured, thrown ever so small a speck or
blemish, on her feminine delicacy. Her father's
death, occurring when she was eighteen, had meant
that the first year of her life as a grown-up girl
had been spent in sincere mourning.

Two very happy years had followed, and then on
a certain thirteenth of September — that is, almost
exactly five years ago — there had befallen Jane
Oglander a thing which befalls daily, it might be
said hourly, some unfortunate human being.

There had cut right into and across her young,
peaceful life a tragedy full of ignoble horror, of
that horror which attracts the eager interest and
attention of the morbid, the idle, and the vulgar.

14 JANE OGLANDER

Jane Oglander's kind brother, some years older
than herself, whom she had taken as completely on
trust as all normal young women take those who
are near and dear to them, had left the club where
he had been dining, and hailing a cab, had driven
to a distant quarter of the town, a quarter of which
the very name was unknown to his sister and to
those with whom she generally associated. There,
in the space of a very few moments, he had killed,
not only a man who was regarded as in a special
sense his friend and as a peculiarly harmless indi-
vidual, but also the woman with whom he had
found this man.

Certain circumstances of the affair, circum-
stances of quite an everyday nature, though they
had appeared to the amazed and agonised sister in-
credible, had roused a good deal of public sym-
pathy with Jack Oglander, Though the fact that
he had taken a pistol with him, as well as some
confidences he had made to yet another friend who
had played a minor part in the sordid drama,
pointed to premeditation, the verdict had been
manslaughter.

Fortunately, as everyone except his poor sister
thought, Jack Oglander fell ill and died a normal
death in the prison infirmary within two months
of his trial.

Friends had rallied — too many rather than too
few — round the unfortunate girl ; but her best
friends, those to whom she felt she owed the great-

JANE OGLANDER 15

est gratitude, were a certain Richard Maule, one of
the trustees of her small fortune, and Richard
Maule's wife, Athena.

Mr, Maule, at the time of the tragedy already an
invalid, had been able to do nothing in an active
sense, but his country house, Rede Place, had im-
mediately become, whenever she chose that it
should be so, Miss Oglander's home. In this mat-
ter the husband and wife were one in a sense they
had scarcely ever been, but in the happy, cloudless
days which now seemed to have belonged to a
former existence, Jane Oglander had already be-
come as much as a young girl can be to a mar-
ried woman some years older than herself, Mrs.
Maule's closest friend.

With these two dear friends was joined in the
same wordless sense of deep gratitude Dick Wan-
tele, Richard Maule's cousin, and in this affair his
spokesman and representative.

It was this young man who, shaking himself
free of a constitutional lethargy, had become the
indispensable adviser and friend of both brother
and sister; it was he who had persuaded Jack Og-
lander to plead " not guilty " ; it was he who had
gone to great personal trouble in order that Miss
Oglander might be spared, as much as was possible,
the dreadful publicity into which each such tragic
happening brings innocent victims.

During the weeks which elapsed between the ar-
rest and the trial, Miss Oglander learnt to lean on

i6 JANE OGLANDER

Dick Wantele, to ask for, and defer to, his advice,
far more than she was at the time aware. Wan-
tele's tact and good feeling, and his intelligent
withholding of the sympathy with which she was
at that time nauseated, were almost uncannily
clever considering the end he had in view.

An offer of marriage very seldom takes a woman
by surprise, but twice Jane Oglander was so sur
prised immediately after her brother's arrest.

The very next day a man much older than her-
self— whom she had regarded with the kindly af-
fection and indifference with which girls so often
regard one whom they unconsciously consider as a
contemporary of their parents rather than their
own — had come and implored her to marry him
there and then. He was a member of the adminis-
tration then in office, and he had hinted that by
doing this — that is, by marrying him — she would
almost certainly benefit her brother's cause. But
though she was touched, and touched to tears, by
the strangely worded proposal, it formed but an
incident, to herself an unimportant incident, in
days crowded with such pain and amazing unhap-
piness.

Some weeks later, while driving back with Jane
Oglander from her first interview with her
brother in prison, during that long — it appeared to
her that endless — drive from Holloway to Westmin-
ster, Dick Wantele also asked her to marry him.

JANE OGLANDER 17

and this offer she also refused. But Wantele would
not allow his disappointment to affect their appar-
ently placid friendship. He it was who brought
her the news that her brother was ill, and he was
actually present at Jack Oglander's mournful
deathbed in the prison infirmary.

Rather ruefully aware that it was so, Dick Wan-
tele now stood to Jane Oglander much in the po-
sition her dead brother had once stood. She had
come to feel for him a deep unquestioning affec-
tion; it was to him she would have turned in any
new distress.

They met frequently, for though Miss Og-
lander had become absorbed in the work among
the London poor to which she henceforth dedicated
her life, her happiest, her only peaceful days — for
she took keenly to heart the material cares and sor-
rows of those with whom she was brought in con-
tact— were the weeks she spent each year at Rede
Place.

When there, the thrice welcome guest of Rich-
ard and Athena Maule, and of their kinsman and
housemate Dick Wantele, Jane's content would
have been absolute had her host and hostess been
on the terms of amity Miss Oglander supposed all
married people as noble as Richard and as good
and beautiful as was Athena should be. But she
had in this matter, as one so often has to do when
dealing with a dual human relation, to compro-

l8 JANE OGLANDER

mise. She gave, that is, her grateful love to both
these people who, if themselves on unhappy terms,
were yet one in their affection for her.

It was to her an added perplexity and pain that
her friend Dick sided with his cousin Richard
Maule rather than with Richard's wife Athena.
Nay, he went further — he took no pains to conceal
his contemptuous indifference to the beautiful
woman who was perforce his housemate for much
of the year. Small wonder that Mrs. Richard
Maule generally absented herself from home when
her friend Jane Oglander was there to take the
place only a woman can fill in a country house of
which the master is an invalid, his heir a bachelor.

So it was that the two women only saw much of
one another when Mrs. Maule was in London.

CHAPTER I

" A flag for those who go out to war,
A flag for those who return,
A flag for those who escape hell fire,
And a flag for those who burn."

In spite of many a proverb to the contrary, a
plan or plot, when carefully imagined and carried
out by an intelligent human being, does not often
miscarry or go wrong.

The fact that Mrs. Kaye was now sitting staring
through the window of the little waiting-room of
Selford Junction was the outcome of a plan —
what she knew well the one most concerned would
have called a plot — which had succeeded beyond
her expectations. She had come there secretly in
order that she might see the last, the very last, of
her son now starting on his way to rejoin his regi-
ment in India. She was here in direct disobedi-
ence to his wish, aware that had he known she
would be there he would have found some way of
eluding her vigilance.

The plan she had made had succeeded by its very
simplicity.

After the quiet, measured " Good-bye and God
bless you, Bayworth ! " uttered by the father to his
only son at the gate of the poverty-stricken garden

19

20 JANE OGLANDER

of the vicarage ; after the mother's more emotional
farewell, Mrs. Kaye, leaving her husband to go
out into the village, had hastened back to the house.
There she had flung on her shabby bonnet, and
waiting a moment till the trap in which her boy
was driving to Selford Junction, some four miles
off, had turned the corner, she had gone quickly
out of the garden. Walking at a rapid pace, for
she was still a vigorous woman, she had taken a
short cut across the fields to the small station
where she knew she would be able to catch the
slow local train which was run in connection with
the London express.

Once at Selford Junction, it had been a compara-
tively easy matter for her to slip into the waiting-
room and take up her station close to the grimy
window commanding the platform alongside of
which the express had already drawn up.

Mrs. Kaye had had two motives in doing what
she had done. Her first and very natural motive
was that of seeing the last, the very last, of her
son. Her second, which she hid even from her-
self, was to discover why he had refused, with a
certain fierce decision, her company as far as Sel-
ford Junction, where, ever since he was a little boy
bound for his first school, she — his mother — had
always gone with him when there had come the
hard moment of saying good-bye.

To the tired labourer in the further corner of
the waiting-room; to the sickly-looking, weary

JANE OGLANDER 21

working woman, accompanied by two children,
who had unwillingly made way for her, the sight
of Mrs. Kaye was familiar, and, in an apathetic
way, unpleasing.

Each of them — even the children — had dis-
agreeable associations with her tall, spare figure,
her severe looking weather-beaten face, crowned
with still abundant fair hair streaked with grey.
They knew, with a long, contemptuous knowledge,
her short black serge skirt and the old-fashioned
beaded mantle, which, formed her usual week-day,
out-door costume in any but the very hottest
weather.

The poor are better judges of character than the
rich. Mrs. Kaye's hard good sense and intelligent
idea of justice, secured her the grudging respect of
her husband's parishioners, but her rigid closeness
about money — which they argued must mean either
exceptional poverty or else unusual meanness —
alienated them. And yet the working woman, sit-
ting there, looked at Mrs. Kaye with a certain fur-
tive sympathy. She well knew that Bayworth Kaye
— he had been christened Bayworth because it was
his mother's maiden name — was leaving for India
that day.

Now Bayworth was in a sense part of the vil-
lage. He had been born at the Vicarage. His
father's parishioners had followed him through
each of the stages of his successful young life, and
they all liked him; partly because the kind of sue-

22 JANE OGLANDER

cess Bayworth Kaye had achieved is not the kind
which arouses dishke or envy, and even more be-
cause he was an open-handed and good-natured
young gentleman, very unlike — so the villagers
would have told you — either his gentle, unpractical
father or his hard mother.

Also, and this was very present to the woman
now watching Mrs. Kaye, " th' parson's son " had
been, during the last few months, the hero of one
of those dramas which, because of certain elemen-
tal passions slumbering in ^all men and in most
women, whatever their rank or condition, always
arouse a certain uneasy, speculative interest and
sympathy in the onlooker. All unconsciously the
village was grateful to young Kaye for having
provided them with something to talk about, some-
thing to laugh about, something, above all, to re-
lieve the uneventful dullness of their lives.

This was why the man and woman whom Mrs.
Kaye — if she was conscious of their presence at all
— regarded as merely of the earth, earthy, were
keenly aware of the last act of the tragi-comedy
being played before their eyes. They knew why
their clergyman's wife was sitting here in the wait-
ing-room, instead of standing out on the platform
saying a last word to her son ; and over each stolid
face there came, when the eyes of these same faces
thoroughly realised at what the lady sitting by the
window was looking, an expression of cunning
amusement, as well as of doubtful sympathy.

JANE OGLANDER 23

Mrs. Kaye's eyes were fixed on a group com-
posed of two people, a man and a woman. The
man — her son Bayworth Kaye — was standing in-
side one of the first-class carriages of the London
express ; and below him on the platform, her right
hand resting on the sash of the open carriage win-
dow, stood Mrs. Maule, the woman whom Mrs.
Kaye had only half expected to see there. In
coming to Selford Junction to see the last of Bay-
worth Kaye, Mrs. Maule was doing a very daring
thing; those of her neighbours and acquaintances
whose opinion counted in the neighbourhood would
have said a very improper and shocking thing.

To Mrs. Kaye — such being her nature — there
was a certain cruel satisfaction in the knowledge
that she had been right in her suspicion as to why
her son had told her that he would far prefer,
this time, to say good-bye at home. Given all
that had gone before, it was not surprising that
Mrs. Kaye had guessed the reason why her boy had
refused her company at Selford Junction.

And yet, now that the reason stood before her,
embodied in a slim, gracefully posed figure which
she and the two dumb spectators of the little scene
knew to be that of the squire's wife, she felt a
dull pang of resentful surprise.

She had hoped against hope that Bayworth
would be here alone, and that there might perhaps
come her chance of a last word which would break
down the high, gateless barrier which had risen

24 JANE OGLANDER

during the last few months between herself and
her son. Mrs. Kaye staring dumbly through the
waiting-room window knew that last word would
never now be uttered.

Young Kaye's good-looking, fair face — the look
of breeding derived from his mother's forebears
crossed with the more solid good looks which had
been his father's — was set in hard lines; yet he
was making a gallant effort to bear himself well,
and he was smiling the painful smile which is so
far removed from mirth. The anguished pain of
parting, the agony he was feeling had found refuge
only in the eyes which were fixed on his com-
panion's face.

Mrs. Kaye tried to see if that beautiful face, into
which her son was gazing with so strange and
tragic a look of hungry pain, reflected any of his
feeling. But the delicately pure profile, the per-
fect curve of cheek and neck, the tiny ear half con-
cealed by carefully dressed masses of dark hair,
in their turn covered by a long grey veil becom-
ingly wound round the green deer-stalker hat, re-
vealed nothing.

Now and again she could see Mrs. Maule's red
lips — lips that told of admirable physical fitness —
move as if in answer to something the other said.

Bayworth Kaye was leaning out, speaking ear-
nestly. With a sudden gesture his lean, brown
fingers closed on the little gloved hand resting on
the window-sill. Mrs. Kaye could not hear what

JANE OGLANDER 25

her son was saying, and she would have given the
world to know, but in the composed, steady glance
directed by her through the waiting-room window
there was nothing to show the bitter, helpless an-
ger which oppressed her.

The excursion train for which the express had
been waiting glided into the station. Mrs. Kaye
reminded herself with a strange mixture of feel-
ings that the time was growing very short; that
not long would her eyes be offended, as they were
now being offended. In five minutes the London
train was due to start.

And then there came over the mother an over-
mastering desire which swept everything before it.
She must hear what it was her boy was saying ; she
must see him clearly once more; she must run the
risk of his becoming aware that she had spied on
him.

Mrs. Kaye rose from the hard wooden seat, and
she made what was for her a mighty effort to
open the grimy waiting-room window; but it re-
mained fast.

Words were muttered behind her, words of
which in her agitation she was quite unconscious.

" Help the lady, can't ye ! "

The big labourer in the corner rose to his feet;
he lumbered across the boarded floor, and laid his
mighty shoulder against the sash; the flange gave
way, and as the window opened there seemed to
rush in a loud, confused wave of sound. A crowd

26 JANE OGLANDER

of Saturday holiday-makers were streaming over
the platform, and as they swayed backwards and
forwards they completely hid for a moment the
man and woman on whom Mrs. Kaye's eyes had
been fixed.

Then, as if the scene before her had been stage-
managed by some master of his craft, the crowd
thinned, divided in two, seeking on either side the
few third-class carriages in the express, and Mrs.
Kaye once more saw her son and Athena Maule;
saw, with a sharp pang, that the look of strain and
anguish had deepened on Bayworth Kaye's face,
that his poor pretence at a smile had gone.

The train groaned and moved a little forward,
bringing the first-class carriages quite close to the
waiting-room window. Putting out her hand, Mrs.
Kaye could almost have touched Mrs. Maule on the
shoulder; she shrank back, but the two on whom
her whole attention was fixed were so far absorbed
in each other as to be quite oblivious of everything
round them. And at last Mrs. Kaye heard the
voice she loved best in the world, nay the only
voice she had ever really loved — asking the pitiful,
futile little question:

"Athena? Darling — say you're sorry I'm
going ! "

There was a pause, and then the woman to
whom the question had been put did in answer a
very extraordinary thing. After having looked
round, and with furtive, deliberate scrutiny noted

JANE OGLANDER 27

that the platform was now practically deserted save
for one man standing some way off, facing the
bookstall and with his back to the express — she
moved for a moment up on to the step of the rail-
way carriage and turned her face, the lovely face
now flushed with something like tenderness and
pity, up to the young man.

" Of course I'm sorry you're going "

Her clear, delicately modulated tones floated
across the short space to where Mrs. Kaye was
sitting.

"Kiss me," breathed the beautiful lips; and
then with a touch of impatience, " You can kiss
me good-bye. Don't you understand ? "

His sudden response, the way his arm shot out
and crushed her face, her slender shoulders, was
far more than she had bargained for. She
stepped back and shook herself like a bird whose
plumage has been ruffled.

And then the train began to move.

Young Kaye leant out, dangerously far, but, in
answer to a slight movement of Mrs. Maule's
hand, he sank back quite out of his mother's sight.
She heard his last hoarse cry of " good-bye," and
for the moment it had a strange effect on her
heart. It seemed to set a seal on her deep pain
and wrath, to bring a certain fierce comfort in the
knowledge that her boy was gone, that he had left
the shameful joy of the last year, the tragic pain
of the last few weeks, behind him. She even told

28 JANE OGLANDER

herself that, in the years that must elapse before
he came home again, he would have time to forget
— as men do forget — the woman who had made
such a fool and worse, such a traitor, of him.

Mrs. Maule stood for a while looking after the
train. Things had not fallen out quite as she had
expected them to do. She sometimes — not often —
acted on sheer impulse, but she seldom did so with-
out very soon repenting of it. She had been sud-
denly moved to do a daring thing, — one of those
things which give a sharp edge to a blurred emo-
tion. But she had not known how to allow, so she
told herself, frowning, for the existence in the sub-
ject of her experiment of an unreasonably primi-
tive violence of feeling.

She moved back and looked about her with an
uncomfortable, rather fearful, look in her eyes. As
she did so, the man standing by the bookstall also
moved, and she became aware, with the quick in-
stinct she had for such things, that he had a strik-
ing, in fact, a very peculiar face. She hoped he
had seen nothing of that foolish little scene with
Bayworth Kaye.

As she looked at the stranger — he was still un-
conscious of her presence — a wave of colour came
over her face, or rather over as much of her face
as the veil swathed about her hat allowed to be
seen of it. With a curious, impulsive, un-English
movement she pulled off one of her gloves and put

JANE OGLANDER 29

up her hand to her hot cheek. Then she turned
abruptly and began walking to the further end of
the platform.

Mrs. Kaye, looking grimly after her, believed
that Athena Maule had seen her, and, having the
grace to be ashamed, had blushed. But, in so think-
ing, the clergyman's wife made one of her usual
mistakes concerning the men and women with
whom her life brought her into unwilling contact.
Mrs. Maule had not seen her, and had she done
so it may be doubted whether she would have felt
any more ashamed or annoyed than she did now.

With a feeling of infinite lassitude, of physical
as well as mental fatigue, Mrs. Kaye turned her
back on the window through which she had seen
a sight which was to remain with her for ever.

There were still some minutes to run before
there would come into the station the local train in
which she could return to her now empty home,
and so drearily her mind went back, taking a
rapid survey of the whole of her son's short life
and hitherto most prosperous career.

Mrs. Kaye came herself of a long line of dis-
tinguished soldiers, and even before her child's
birth she had been determined that he should fol-
low in the footsteps of her own people, not in
those of his mild, kindly father's. From his
cradle the lad had been dedicated to the god of
battles, and only the mother herself knew what her

30 JANE OGLANDER

intention had cost her in the way of self-denial and
of incessant effort.

Inadequate as had been their clerical income,
supplemented by pitifully small private means, she
and her husband had grudged nothing to Bay-
worth. Mrs. Kaye was a clever woman, cleverer
than most; she had been at some pains to find out
the best way in which to put a boy through the
modern military mill, and everything had gone
with almost fairy-like smoothness from first to last.

From the preparatory school, where she had as-
certained that he would have among his mates
the sons of the then Minister for War, down to the
day when he had won the Sword of Honour at
Sandhurst, young Kaye had been everything that
even his exacting mother had desired. Nay more,
he had once or twice said a word — only a word,
but still it had amply repaid Mrs. Kaye for all she
had gone through — implying that he understood
the sacrifices his father and mother had made for
his sake.

When he had been specially chosen to take part
in a dangerous frontier expedition, it was his
father who had appeared miserably anxious, but it
was with his mother,, softened, carried out of her-
self, that the whole neighbourhood had eagerly sym-
pathised when there had come the glorious news
that Bayworth Kaye had been mentioned in de-
spatches for an act of reckless courage and gal-
lantry, and recommended for the Victoria Cross.

JANE OGLANDER 31

Then had followed the lad's happy home-coming,
and quite suddenly, before — so it now seemed to
his mother — Bayworth had been back a week, Mrs.
Maule had thrown over him the web of her fasci-
nations. Not content with having him constantly
about her at Rede Place, she had procured for
him invitations to the houses where she stayed, and
made him her slave in a sense Mrs. Kaye had not
known men could be enslaved.

Mother and son had had one painful discussion
in which the mother had been worsted. With
terror she had plumbed for a moment the hidden
depths of her boy's heart. " You tell me there has
been talk," he said very quietly. " If you will
give me the name of any man who has talked
unbecomingly of Mrs. Maule, I will deal with

him " "Deal with him, Bayworth? What

could you do?" " I could kill him." He had ut-
tered the words almost indifferently, and Mrs.
Kaye looking into his set face had said no more.

It was well that his father had known and sus-
pected nothing.

The whole matter was to Mrs. Kaye the more
amazing and iniquitous because she had hitherto
always defended Mrs. Maule when that lady's con-
duct was discussed, as it constantly was discussed,
in the neighbourhood of Rede Place. At Redyford
Vicarage such talk had never been tolerated; and
with a few stinging words of rebuke Mrs. Kaye
had ever put the gossips in their places.

32 JANE OGLANDER

It had suited her far better to have to deal with a
brilliant, beautiful, rather reckless woman, who was
much away from home, and who always treated her
with the courtesy and indifferent good-humour due
to an equal, rather than with the type of great lady
to whom she knew some of the other clergy's wives
were in subjection.

CHAPTER II

"L'opinion dispose de tout. Elle fait la beaute, la justice,
et le bonheur qui est le tout du monde."

To say that the most important events of life
often turn on trifling incidents has become a truism,
and yet it may be doubted if any of us realise how
especially true this is concerning the greatest of hu-
man riddles, the riddle of sex.

Had the man of whose presence on the platform
of Selford Junction Mrs. Maule had become aware,
turned round and watched the London express be-
fore it steamed out of the station, his own immedi-
ate future, to say nothing of that secret, inner life
of memory which each human being carries as a
burden, might have been considerably modified. But
at the moment when Mrs. Maule had been engaged
in trying her not very happy experiment with Bay-
worth Kaye, the only other occupant of the plat-
form was staring with a good deal of interest and
curiosity at a long row of illustrated newspaper
pages pinned dado-wise round the top of the book-
stall.

The newsagent's clerk, when arranging his wares
that morning, had had what he felt to be an unusu-
ally bright idea. Picking out what he considered the
two most attractive items in the illustrated paper

33

34 JANE OGLANDER

with which he was deaHng, he had repeated these
items alternately with what to most onlookers would
have seemed an irritating regularity.

The two pages he had selected for this honour
were very different. The one consisted of a set of
photographs, nine officers in uniform : General Hew
Lingard and his Staff, just returned home after the
victorious Amadawa Expedition. " Here," the
bookstall clerk had probably argued unconsciously,
and quite wrongly, to himself, " is a page that will
interest gentlemen and boys. Now I must find
something that will cause ladies to purchase the pa-
per," and he had accordingly put next to the page
of military portraits one consisting of a single
illustration — the reproduction of a beautiful paint-
ing of a beautiful woman.

The man staring up at the black and white pages
was true to what the clerk took to be the masculine
type of newspaper buyer and reader, for he devoted
his whole attention to the group of military por-
traits. He had, however, a special reason for star-
ing up as he was now doing at the rather absurd
dado, for it was his own portrait which occupied the
place of honour in the centre of the page.

Being the manner of man he was. Hew Lingard
felt at once elated and ashamed at seeing himself
hung up in this queer pillory of fame. He was
moved more than he would have cared to admit,
even to himself, at seeing the honour paid to that
old photograph taken some seven years before, at

JANE OGLANDER 35

a time when he was out of love with life, having
been, as he imagined, shelved by a small home ap-
pointment.

The portraits of his staff were comparatively new ;
they had doubtless been supplied in haste by the
happy mothers and sisters of the sitters, and his
grey eyes, set under deep overhanging brows, rested
on them proudly. It was to these eight comrades
— so he would have been the first to admit, nay to
insist — that he had owed much of the sudden over-
whelming success which had now come to him.

At last he resolutely concentrated his attention on
the opposite illustration, and coming up a little
closer to the stall, he read what was printed under-
neath :

" This modern picture, only painted ten years ago,
fetched ten thousand pounds at Christie's last week.
It is a portrait of the beautiful Mrs. Richard Maule
in the character of a Greek nymph. Mrs. Maule, be-
fore her marriage to the well-known owner of Rede
Place, one of the show places of Surrey, was Miss
Athena Durdon. Her father was British Consul at
Athens, and her mother a Greek lady of rank ; hence
her interesting and unusual Christian name."

" Why, it's Jane's friend," he said to himself.
" How very odd that I should see it here and now ! "

General Lingard had glanced at the illustration,
when his eye had first caught sight of it, with dis-
taste. But now that he knew that this rather fan-
tastic picture was a painting of the dearest friend of

36 JANE OGLANDER

the woman who was going to be his wife, he looked
with kind, considering, and even eager eyes at the
Greek nymph.

The famous soldier did not find it easy to adjust
his imaginary portrait of Athena Maule, Jane
Oglander's Athena, to this lovely embodiment of a
pagan myth. But artists, or so he supposed, some-
times take strange liberties with their sitters — be-
sides, this was not in any sense a portrait. . . .

" Your train's in, sir. Redyford is the second sta-
tion from here."

He turned away and walked quickly to the side-
platform where the short local train was standing
ready to start.

There were still some minutes to spare, and Mrs.
Maule, on her way to the train, stopped and looked
up with a curious sensation in which pleasure and
anger both played a part, at the dado formed of the
two pages taken from the Illustrated London News.

Only one of those pages — that which was a repro-
duction of the picture sold the week before at
Christie's — attracted her attention and aroused in
her very mixed sensations : pleasure at the thought
that her portrait should be displayed in a fashion so
wholly satisfying to her own critical and now highly
educated taste; anger at the knowledge that the
splendid painting had been sold to an American, in-
stead of taking its place in the picture-gallery of
Rede Place. When the picture had suddenly come

JANE OGLANDER 37

into the market, she had ardently desired that her
husband should buy it, and she had even ventured
to convey her wish to him through his cousin, Dick
Wantele, but to her mortification Richard Maule
had refused.

Mrs. Maule now remembered with a sharp pang-
of self-pity the circumstances which had surrounded
the painting of this picture. A portrait which her
husband had commissioned the famous artist to
paint of her was scarcely begun when the painter,
who had taken an adjoining villa to theirs at Naples
for the winter, had asked her whether she would sit
to him in the character of a Greek nymph. Pleased
and flattered, she had assented. Then, mentioning
what she was about to do to her then indulgent and
adoring husband, he, to her great astonishment, had
disliked the idea : disliked it sufficiently to beg her
as a personal favour to himself to make some ex-
cuse for not keeping her promise.

But even in those malleable days Athena Maule
was incapable of denying herself a fleeting gratifica-
tion. While appearing to assent to her husband's
wish she had secretly fulfilled her promise to the
artist, and the picture had excited such keen admira-
tion when it was first exhibited that it had made
Mrs. Richard Maule's beauty famous even before
she came to England. The episode had also resulted
in her first serious quarrel with Richard Maule.

When he had first seen the painting — for rather
against her will the great artist had insisted on

38 JANE OGLANDER

showing it to him — Mr. Maiile had expressed an
admiration it was impossible not to feel for the
technical qualities of the work, but he had refused,
with angry decision, any thought of commissioning
a replica for Rede Place.

At last Mrs. Maule made her way to the train,
and deliberately she chose a carriage which had, as
its one occupant, the man she had noticed standing
by the bookstall a quarter of an hour before. She
had liked the look of him then, and she liked it even
more now. She wondered where he was going to
stay — ^whether with people she knew.

As she sat down in the opposite corner, she
glanced at him with instinctive interest and curios-
ity; he was lean and brown, and his face had the
taut, tense look of the man who achieves — whose
life is spent in combating forces greater than him-
self.

She longed for something to distract her mind
from the emotion — a mingling of impatient annoy-
ance and self-pity — induced by her parting scene
with Bayworth Kaye. She blamed herself for hav-
ing come to Selford Junction; they, she and Bay-
worth, had said good-bye, in a real sense, yesterday.
Why, acting on a good-natured impulse, had she
been so foolish as to write him a last word saying
she would come and see him off? He had not un-
derstood, poor fellow — men never did. Instead of
having something touching, sentimental — in a word.

JANE OGLANDER 39

soothing to look back to — there would only be a sad,
painful memory. She was still, even now, haunted
by young Kaye's desperate, unhappy eyes — and yet
she had been so kind, so very kind to him !

Yes, she had made a mistake in coming to Selford
Junction. With a pettish movement she pulled
down her veil yet further over her face.

Three more travellers made sudden irruption into
the railway carriage, and both Athena Maule and the
man opposite to her turned round with frowning
faces ; they were one in their dislike of noise and vul-
garity. But the man soon looked away, indifferent
to his surroundings; he opened a German Service
paper, and was soon reading it intently.

Athena Maule glanced distastefully at the three
people who had just come into the carriage. She
knew them to be a Lady Barking and Lady Bark-
ing's married daughter, very wealthy people new to
the neighbourhood. They had been pointed out to
her by her husband's cousin, Dick Wantele, only a
day or two before, driving past in one of the horse-
less carriages which were then becoming the fashion,
but with which Richard Maule obstinately refused
to supersede — or even allow them to be added to —
his stables.

She also knew, and in a more real sense, the man
who was with the two ladies. He was a Major
Biddell, one of those men only to be found, so Mrs.
Maule now reminded herself, in hospitable Eng-
land. Such men drift about from country house to

40 JANE OGLANDER

country house, making themselves useful to the host-
ess; they are able to take part with modest success
in any of the games and sports that may be going
on; and with advancing years they endear them-
selves to the dowagers by an unceasing flow of ma-
licious and often very unsavory gossip.

Athena Maule had no use for this type of man,
and as for the particular specimen who was now
fussing round his two companions, thrusting illus-
trated papers into their hands, pulling up and down
the window, and offering to change seats with them
— she remembered that she had snubbed him once,
cruelly. They had met at a moment when she was
enjoying the new, the intoxicating experience of a
suddenly acclaimed beauty.

She turned her head away, for she did not wish to
be recognised by Major Biddell; and then, as the
train moved out of the station, she suddenly became
aware, not without a certain amusement, that she
was being discussed by the two ladies.

The younger lady, " the vulgar married daugh-
ter," as Athena mentally described her, had opened
the illustrated paper with which Major Biddell had
provided her, and begun looking at the reproduction
of the picture which had fetched a record price at
Christie's.

" If that is really like Mrs. Maule, then she's a
very beautiful woman," she said thoughtfully. " Is
she really very like that, Major Biddell? You know
her, don't you?"

JANE OGLANDER 41

" Oh yes. I know her quite well," he said
promptly. " She often stays with the Kershaws of
Cumberland, old friends of mine."

He bent his sleek head over the page, and jerked
his eyeglass in and out of his right eye. " H'm,"
he said, " rather a fancy portrait that ! I doubt if
the fair Athena was ever as lovely. Of course she
may have been when she first married poor Maule,
a matter of fifteen to sixteen years ago."

"Has she been married as long as that?" said
Lady Barking. " I am surprised ! I thought Mrs.
Maule was still quite a young woman."

" She's fairly young still — ^but then Maule mar-
ried her when she was almost a child. She was
Greek, you know, and the women blossom and fade
very quickly out there. But still, I'm not denying
that she's good-looking. In fact she's still an un-
commonly handsome woman," he admitted gener-
ously. " I saw her at Ascot this year, and I was
quite struck by the way she was wearing."

The elder lady leant forward with sudden eager-
ness. "If you know her so well " — she hesitated
— " I wonder if you would mind going over and
seeing her, Major? Rede Place is the only house
that hasn't called on us since we've been in the neigh-
bourhood."

Major Biddell shook his head very decidedly.

" Oh no," he said, " you don't understand the
kind, my dear lady! It's true that I do know her
very well in a sense — but the likes of her doesn't

42 JANE OGLANDER

condescend to look at the likes of me," he laughed
uncomfortably. *' She has no use for any one who
isn't in love with her, or who hasn't been in love
with her. The first time I saw her the whole crowd
were at her feet. I was the only one who stood
apart, so you can imagine whether she likes me or
not!"

" Do tell us. Major Biddell ; is it really true
that " the voice dropped, but the two other si-
lent, unknown occupants of the carriage caught a
word or two which the young lady who spoke them
had certainly not intended them to hear.

" They're all like that in her particular set," de-
clared Major Biddell briefly. He looked round un-
comfortably. It is always a mistake to talk of peo-
ple, especially women, by their names, in a railway
carriage or any other semi-public place.

Then the mother chimed in : " One does hear
very peculiar stories about her, Major."

The little man winced. " Well," he said, " there's
a lot of excuse for her, isn't there? Think of the
state Maule's in! There she is, a beautiful woman
tied to a kind of mummy ! "

" I don't think a woman, however good-looking
she may be, has any excuse for breaking her mar-
riage vows," said the elder lady uncompromisingly.

She felt that Major Biddell was not behaving
very nicely to her. She had understood that he was
a very useful man to know, but during the last two

JANE OGLANDER 43

or tHree days it had begun to strike her that He was
a selfish Httle man. Of course he could have con-
trived a meeting between herself and Mrs. Maule
if he really had a mind to do so ! She also felt in-
dignant with him for pretending to her and to her
daughter that there was nothing specially scan-
dalous in the behaviour of Mrs. Maule.

Why, everybody knew what Mrs. Maule was
like ! Even before she, Lady Barking, had become
a part of Society, she had heard of the beautiful
Mrs. Maule and her " goings on " ; and in this part
of the world the escapades of Mrs. Maule, the ex-
traordinary things she had been known to do, were
the standing gossip dish of the neighourhood.
Even now, everyone was talking of the way in
which she had bewitched young Bayworth Kaye,
the Redyford clergyman's son, during the last few
months. It was absurd for Major Biddell to pre-
tend that Mrs. Maule was just like everybody else !

Perhaps something of what she was feeling be-
trayed itself on her large, round face, for Major
Biddell moved a little nearer to her. After all. Lady
Barking was his hostess, and he desired to stay on
at her comfortable, luxuriously appointed house for
at least another ten days.

" I see you know a good bit about her," he said,
grinning. " I can tell you one really funny story
about her," and then he proceeded to tell it, the two
hanging on his lips, though the elder of his listeners

44 JANE OGLANDER

felt uncomfortable, half -ashamed at listening- so
eagerly to what in another mood she would probably
have described as " garbage."

A hand was suddenly laid on Major Biddell's
shoulder. He faced about quickly. A stranger of
whose presence in the railway carriage he had
scarcely been aware, was standing before him, tall,
grim, formidable.

" I must ask you, sir," the stranger spoke very
clearly, " to withdraw every word that you have said
concerning Mrs. Richard Maule. As for the story
you have just told, you and I heard it at Undulah a
good many years ago. It was told — I remember the
fact, if you do not — of another lady, of, of — no
matter — " he stopped himself abruptly.

Major Biddell jumped up. If no gentleman in
the higher sense of the word, he was also no coward.

" I shall say exactly what I like," he said sharply,
" and I question your right to interfere with me in
any way. You say you met me at Undulah a good
many years ago? If that's the case, you have the
advantage of me! "

There was a moment's pause ; then it was broken
by a nervous laugh and a whisper from daughter to
mother, " Poor man, I suppose he's another of Mrs.
Maule's victims ! "

" Perhaps I should add," said the stranger, his
voice thick with anger and contempt, " that though
I have never met Mrs. Maule, I know quite enough

JANE OGLANDER 45

of her to be assured that this vile gossip, these —
these foul allegations, are utterly, damnably un-
true."

Major Biddell felt very much relieved. For a
horrible moment he had supposed, not unnaturally,
that the man who had just administered so sharp a
rebuke to him was nearly related to Mrs. Maule. He
had at once realized that the speaker was a member
of the profession he had once adorned, nay more,
he was uncomfortably aware that the man's dark
face had been seen by him before. The unpleasant
stranger was eccentric — to say the least of it. But
of course there are such men in the world — Major
Biddell thanked God he hadn't hitherto met many
such — who go through life breaking lances for the
sex.

The little scene was over in a very few moments,
and, after one quick look round, the woman who
sat in the furthest corner had apparently taken no
interest in what was going on. Her face was turned
away. She was staring out of the narrow window.
Major Biddell, glancing at her apprehensively, could
only see her slim, straight back, and the veil twisted
round her small hat hiding the dark shining coils of
hair.

The train began to slow down. The two ladies
got up with an air of rather ostentatious relief.
Major Biddell opened the door and jumped out. He
carefully helped his companions down the high steps.

46 JANE OGLANDER

As all three moved away, Lady Barking's sonorous
voice could be heard saying, " I should think that
man was mad! "

" Oh no, he wasn't, mother," said her daughter
loudly. " He's an adorer of the lady — that's what
it is. I expect he's on his way to stay there now ! "

" But they never have any visitors at Rede Place
except that Miss Oglander."

The train moved on. To the woman sitting in the
corner the atmosphere of the railway carriage was
still charged with a not unpleasing electricity.

Very deliberately she raised her veil and subjected
the man sitting opposite to a long, thoughtful
scrutiny. She raked her memory in vain for the
strongly-drawn dark face, the large, loosely-made
figure.

Suddenly he raised his eyes and met her full, con-
sidering glance. No, they had never met before.
No man who had ever known Athena Maule, even
for only a brief space of time, would look into her
lovely, mobile face, meet the peculiar glance of her
large heavy-lidded violet eyes, as this stranger was
now doing, coldly, unchallengingly.

Mrs. Maule reddened, and hurriedly pulled down
her veil. She felt — and it was a disconcerting sen-
sation— as if she had been snubbed.

CHAPTER III

"The world is oft to treason not unkind,
But ne'er the traitor can admirers find."

It was the evening of the same day.

Two men were sitting together in what was called
the Greek Room by the household of Rede Place.

The elder of the two was close to the fire-place,
his stiff, thin hands held out to the blue shooting
flames of a wood fire. Although he was dressed for
dinner, there was that about him which suggested
invalidism. Cushions were piled behind him in the
deep, capacious chair in which he seemed to crouch
rather than to sit, and a light rug was thrown across
his knees, although it was only the ist of October.

This was Richard Maule, whose name was known
to the cosmopolitan world of scholars as a Hellenist,
an authority on classical archaeology, on the slowly
excavated story of long-buried civilizations. To
those who dwelt in the present, and who only cared
for the things of to-day, he was enviable as the
owner of a delightful and, in its way, a famous
estate in Surrey.

Rede Place! The enchanting, rather artificial
pleasaunce created out of what had been a primeval
stretch of woodland by an early Victorian million-
aire! The banker virtuoso, Theophilus Joy, had

47

48 JANE OGLANDER

committed what we should now consider the crime
of pulling down a fine old Tudor manor-house in
order to reproduce in the keener English climate
and alien English soil those Palladian harmonies of
form which have their natural home only beneath
southern skies.

There had been a time in the 'fifties and the 'six-
ties when Rede Place had been a synonym for all
that was exquisite and perfect in art and life. But
Richard Maule, though he shared many of the
tastes, and had inherited all the wealth of his
grandfather, was a recluse. Not even the posses-
sion of a singularly beautiful and attractive wife
ever made him throw open Rede Place in the old,
hospitable, magnificent way in which it had been
thrown open during his own childhood and early
youth.

As far as was possible, he lived alone — alone,
that is, with the companionship of his wife, when
she was willing to favour him with her companion-
ship, and fortunate in the constant society of his
kinsman, Dick Wantele, whom ail the world knew
to be Richard Maule's ultimate heir, that is, the
future owner of Rede Plaice.

Each of the rooms of the long Italianate house
was filled with curious, rare, and costly works of
art, offering many points of interest to the collec-
tor and student, and this was specially true of the
room in which now sat Richard Maule and Dick
Wantele.

JANE OGLANDER 49

In 1843 Theophilus Joy, the friend rather than
the patron of Turner, had persuaded that eccentric
and secretive genius to accompany him from Italy
to Greece. The enduring result of this journey
was a remarkable series of water-colours forming
the decoration of what was henceforth called the
Greek Room of Rede Place. Over the mantelpiece
was a copy, by the artist, of " Ulysses deriding
Polyphemus." Below the Turner water-colours,
and forming a latticed dado round the room, were
a row of lacquered bookcases containing Richard
Maule's unique collection of books and pamphlets,
in every language, dealing with the Greece of the
past and of the present.

Dick Wantele sat as far from the fire as was
possible, close to a window which he would have
preferred to have open. His long, angular figure
was bent almost in two over his knee, on which
there lay propped up a block of drawing paper..
He was drawing busily, sketching a small house,
by the side of which was a rough plan of what was
evidently to be the inside of the house. A heavily-
shaded lamp left in shadow his pale, lantern- jawed
face, only redeemed from real ugliness by its ex-
pression of alert intelligence.

The two, unlike most men living in the difficult
juxtaposition of owner and heir, were on the most
excellent terms the one with the other. Theirs in-
deed was the happy kind of intimacy which re-

50 JANE OGLANDER

quires no words, no futile exchange of small talk,
to prove kindliness and understanding; and when
at last Richard Maule spoke, he did not even turn
round, for he was used to the other's instant com-
prehension and sympathy.

" Then the Paches are bringing over General
Lingard to dinner next Tuesday?"

The younger man looked up quickly. " Yes, on
Tuesday," he said. " Athena seems to think that
will be the best day for them to come. You see,
Jane Oglander will be here then."

" I'm glad of that," said Richard Maule.

" I hope their coming won't bore you, Richard.
Athena couldn't get out of it. You see Pache
practically asked her to ask them over. They want
to show their lion, and they also want to entertain
their lion! I confess I'm rather looking forward
to seeing Lingard."

" I've seen so many lions." Mr. Maule spoke
with a touch of weary irritation. And then he
added, after a rather long pause, " I never cared
for soldiers, at any rate not for your modern man
of war who goes out with a Gatling gun to kill a
lot of poor niggers."

" Lingard has done more than that, Richard.
He succeeded where three other men had failed,
and what is really wonderful, he did it on the
cheap."

" That I admit is wonderful," said Richard
Maule dryly, " but I don't suppose the people who

JANE OGLANDER 51

are now feting him are doing it as a reward for his
economy. However, no matter, we'll entertain the
Pachian hero."

The mahogany door at the end of the long room
opened, then it was closed quietly, and a woman
came in, bringing with her a sudden impression of
vitality, of youth, of buoyant strength into the
shadowed, overheated room.

Athena Maule advanced with easy, graceful
steps till she stood, a radiant figure, in the circle of
warring light cast by the fire and by the shaded
lamps. Her cheeks were flushed, tinted to an ex-
quisite carmine that seemed to leave more white
her low forehead and now heaving bosom.

She stopped just between the two men, glancing
quickly first at one and then at the other. And
then at last, after a perceptible pause, she spoke,
her clear accents, slightly foreign in their intona-
tion, falling ominously on the ears of her small
audience of two.

*' I've just had a letter from Jane Oglander."

The younger of the two men wondered with a
certain lazy amusement whether Athena was aware
of how dramatic had been her announcement of a
singularly insignificant fact. As to the older man
— he who sat by the fireplace — he had turned and
deliberately looked away as the door opened. But
now it was he who spoke, and this to Dick Wan-
tele was significant, for Richard Maule very seldom
spoke of his own accord, to his wife.

52 JANE OGLANDER

"Then isn't she coming- to-morrow? It seems
a long time since Jane left us — in August, wasn't
it?"

"Jane Oglander," said Mrs. Maule, her left
hand playing with the tassel terminating the Alge-
rian scarf which slipped below her bare dimpled
shoulders, " Jane Oglander wishes me to tell you
both that — that she is going to be married."

Richard Maule fixed his stern, sunken eyes on
his wife. It was a terrible look — a look of min-
gled contempt and hatred.

"Anyone we know?" asked Dick Wantele
quietly.

Athena Maule looked at him with a grudging
admiration. Dick was certainly what some of her
English friends called " game," and her French
friends " crane." She had now lived in England
for some eight years, but she did not yet under-
stand Englishmen and their ways; and of all the
strange Englishmen she had come across, there
were few that struck her as so queer — queer was
the word — as her husband's cousin, Dick Wantele.
But he had long ceased really to interest her.

Walking slowly down the long gallery up-stairs,
Mrs. Maule had thought deeply how she should
make her startling announcement, how reveal the
news which had hurt her so shrewdly as to make
her wish — such being her nature — that others
should share her pain.

She had thought of coming in with Jane Og-

JANE OGLANDER 53

lander's letter open in her hand, but no, this she
decided would be rather cheap, and would also in
a measure prepare Dick — it was Dick whom she
wished to hurt, whom she knew she would hurt.
Richard Maule was incapable of being hurt by any-
thing. But still it was very pleasant to know that
even Richard would be irritated at the thought that
Jane Oglander, who had now been for so long the
one healing, soothing presence in their sombre
household, and whom he had stupidly believed
would end by marrying Dick Wantele was now
going to disappear into the morass of British ma-
tronhood.

" Anyone we know ? " she repeated consider-
ingly. " No, not exactly, but someone who is
quite famous and whom we shall know very
soon."

Dick Wantele shrugged his shoulders with a
nervous movement. His cousin's wife was fond
of talking in enigmas, especially to him, and espe-
cially when she knew he desired to be told a simple
fact simply and quickly.

Then something unexpected happened. Richard
Maule again spoke, and again addressed his wife.

" I suppose," he said, " you mean General Lin-
gard?"

" How did you know ? Has Jane written to
you ? " Mrs. Maule flashed the questions out.

The one who looked on was vividly aware that
this was the first time, so far as he knew, for

54 JANE OGLANDER

years, that Athena Maule had asked direct ques-
tions of her husband, questions demanding
answers.

Even now Richard Maule did not vouchsafe his
wife the courtesy of a reply. It seemed to him
that her questions answered themselves, and in the
negative.

But Dick Wantele got up. " Is this true,
Athena ? " he asked abruptly. " Is Jane engaged
to General Lingard? What an extraordinary
thing! Why, he hasn't been back from West
Africa more than a fortnight."

She nodded. " Yes ! — it's quite true. Appar-
ently his parents were friends of her father ages
ago. She knew him when she was a child. They
met again quite by chance last time he was in Eng-
land. Then he began to write to her. It all
seems to have been arranged by letter. At least
she says they corresponded all the time he was
away, and then he appears to have gone straight
to her on the evening of the day he arrived in
London. I suppose," she concluded not very
pleasantly, " that she could not dash his triumph —
and so she accepted him. It is very difficult," she
continued, " for a woman to say no to a hero."

Dick Wantele smiled. His eyes met hers with a
curious flash of rather cruel raillery. Her own
dropped for a moment; then they seemed to dilate
as she went on, " I really do know what I am talk-
ing about, for you see, Dick, Richard was a hero

JANE OGLANDER 55

when I married him. In Greece we all looked
upon the great, the noble, the famous Mr. Maule
as quite a hero!"

For a moment she allowed her full glance to rest
on the unheroic figure crouching by the fire, and
Dick Wantele felt keenly vexed with himself. He
was not often so foolish as to wage war with
Richard Maule's wife in Richard Maule's presence.

All three hailed with relief the interruption
caused by the announcement of dinner. Wantele
got up with more alacrity than usual. He walked
with a quick, sliding step to where Mrs. Maule was
still standing. With a little bow he offered her his
arm.

As they left the room Mr. Maule's valet came In
by another door. Quickly, noiselessly, he brought
forward an invalid table and placed on it a tray.
There was soup, some whole-meal bread, a little
very fine fruit, and a small decanter of claret.
Then after the man had asked, " Is there anything
else you require, sir?" and had noted the scarcely
perceptible shake of the head with which Mr.
Maule answered him, the master of Rede Place
was left alone.

Richard Maule looked at the silver bowl con-
taining his half-pint of soup — everything he ate
was measured and weighed and prepared with the
most scrupulous accuracy according to a great doc-
tor's ordinance — with a kind of fastidious distaste.
Since his illness he had grown particular about his

56 JANE OGLANDER

food, and yet as youth and man no one had been
more indifferent than he to the kind of luxury by
which most men set such store. During- the years
which had immediately preceded his marriage, it
had been his boast that he could live for days and
even weeks on the rough, unpalatable fare dear to
the Greek peasant.

Steadying his right hand with his left, he ate a
spoonful of soup, then pushed the bowl away. The
news his wife had taken such malicious pleasure in
telling had disturbed and pained him more than he
thought anything could now disturb and pain him.
He was attached to Jane Oglander; she was the
only human being apart from Dick whose presence
was, if not agreeable, at least not unpleasant to
him. In the rare moments of kindly thought and
musing on the future which sometimes visited him,
he saw Jane mistress of Rede Place, bringing peace
and, what is so much nearer the heart of life, love
satisfied, to Dick Wantele. He had felt sure that
Jane, with her tenderness, her simplicity of na-
ture, would end where most women of her type
end, by surrender.

That she would marry anyone excepting Dick
Wantele had seemed impossible. But in this life,
as Richard Maule had learnt far too late, it is what
would have seemed impossible which happens.

Dick Wantele and Mrs. Maule sat opposite one
another at a round table set at one end of the

JANE OGLANDER 57

great tapestry-hung dining-room. A stranger see-
ing them would have thought the plain young man
singularly blessed in having so lovely a table-mate
sitting with him at so perfectly cooked and noise-
lessly served a meal as they were now enjoying.

But though there was a side of his nature pecu-
liarly alive to certain sensuous forms of beauty,
to-night Wantele only saw in Athena the malicious,
almost the malignant, bearer of ill news.

But civilized man, if eating in company, must
also talk, and so at last, " One sees now," he said
reflectively, " why the worthy Paches have been so
greatly honoured."

"What do you mean?" asked Mrs. Maule. It
was, she found, sometimes easier to ask Dick to
explain himself than to try and guess what he
meant.

" I mean," said Wantele, " that one can now
understand why General Lingard accepted his dull
relations' invitation. It was because he knew that
his young woman would be in the neighbourhood,
staying here with us."

" Your choice of phrase," said Athena sharply,
" is not very refined."

" Isn't it? " he said mildly. " But then, Athena,
I don't know that I ever set up to be a particularly
refined person."

And then, as they sat sparring and jarring as
they so often did at their quickly-served meals,
Dick Wantele gradually became aware that ]\Irs.

58 JANE OGLANDER

Manle was eating nothing, nay more, that her
short upper Hp was trembHng — large tears rolHng
down her cheeks.

"Why! — Athena?" he exclaimed. "You
mustn't allow this unexpected news to " — he hesi-
tated for a word — " to upset you so much." He
looked up across at her with a not very kind curi-
osity. His light observant eyes suddenly seized on
what was to him an amazing sight, namely that a
folded letter, covered with a fine clear handwrit-
ing he knew with a dear familiar knowledge, was
working up out of Mrs. Maule's short bodice and
forming a grey patch on her white neck. In spite
of himself, Wantele was rather touched.

" Of course I have always known that Jane was
devoted to you," he said musingly, " but I didn't
realise that the feeling was reciprocated to such an
extent as it seems to be ! "

A flush of stormy anger reddened Mrs. Maule's
face.

" With Jane often here it has been bad enough ! "
she said passionately. " But what will my life be
like henceforth? — I mean when I shan't even have
her to look forward to? Richard will force me to
be here more than ever now."

" I think you will still manage to be a good deal
away "

He had been right after all. Athena was only
thinking of Jane Oglander's marriage as it affected
herself.

JANE OGLANDER 59

t(

Of course I shall stay away as much as I
can ! " she cried. " You and Richard much prefer
my absence to my presence " her look chal-
lenged a contradiction Wantele did not — could not
utter.

"And then— and then that isn't all, Dick! I
didn't mind being here when Jane was here too to
make things go well "

" Perhaps Jane will sometimes leave her hero
during the very few weeks of the year that you
are, as it were, in residence, Athena. He's going,
it seems, to be given a home appointment. I sup-
pose they will be married very soon ? "

Wantele did not look at her as he spoke. He
was tracing an imaginary pattern on the table-
cloth. The numbness induced by the horrible blow
she had dealt him was beginning to give way to
stinging stabs of pain. He longed to know more —
to know everything — to turn as it were a jagged
knife in his heart-wound.

Mrs. Maule dabbed her eyes with her handker-
chief, then she laughed.

" No, no, Dick," she cried, " there's no such
luck in store for you — I mean for us! We're go-
ing to lose Jane — once for all. Jane has taken it
rather badly. I never thought that dear saint
would fall in love ! " She suddenly became aware
that his eyes were fixed on the letter she had
thrust into the bodice of her gown when walking
down the long gallery upstairs. She took it out

6o JANE OGLANDER

of her warm and scented bodice, and held it out to
him.

" I think you'd better read what she says."

Wantele looked at the pretty hand holding Jane
Oglander's letter, but he made no attempt to take
the folded paper. " I should like to read it — " he
said lightly, " but I think I'd better not."

"Yes, do read it, Dick. Why shouldn't you?"
She added slowly, " There's something about you
in it too "

Wantele hesitated, and then he fell. He leant
over and took Jane Oglander's letter from her
hand. His own was shaking, and that angered
him. He turned his chair right round, and hold-
ing the two sheets of grey paper up close to his
eyes deliberately read them slowly through.

As at last he handed them back to her, he said
quietly, " You told me a lie just now, Athena. I
am not mentioned in Jane's letter."

" Indeed you are ! " She pointed to a thin line
of writing across the top of the second sheet.

" ' I hope Dick won't mind much ' — " she read
aloud.

" There's something else ! " he cried quickly, and
getting up strode round and took the letter again
from her with a masterful hand. " * I hope Dick
won't mind much' — " he read aloud, " * or dear
Richard either.' "

Then he let the letter drop on the cloth beside

JANE OGLANDER 6l

her. The numbness had all gone, the pain he felt
had become almost intolerable.

Mrs. Maule again tucked Jane Oglander's let-
ter inside her bodice, then she got up. As he held
the door open for her, Wantele put his hand, his
cool, long-fingered, impersonal hand, on her arm.

"Athena," he said softly. "I wonder how it
is that you have always had the gift of making me
do things of which I knew I should live to feel
ashamed. A unique gift, dear cousin "

She turned and laughed mischievously up into
his pale suffering face. " The woman tempted me,
and so of course I ate ! " she exclaimed. " You're
not much of a man, Dick, but you have always been
a thorough man in the matter of making excuses
for yourself ! "

CHAPTER IV

"He smarteth most who hides his smart
And sues for no compassion."

After he had closed the door behind his cousin,
Dick Wantele did not go back to the little round
table, its fruit and wine. Instead he began walking
up and down the dining-room, his hands clasped be-
hind his back. The reading of Jane Oglander's let-
ter had brought with it sharp and instant punish-
ment.

Even to her dearest woman friend Jane had said
little of her inmost feelings, but the man who knew
her with a far more intimate knowledge than any
other human being would ever know her, under-
stood. Jane loved Lingard. Loved him in a way
he, Wantele, had not thought her capable of loving,
and the revelation hurt him horribly. Why had he
failed where another had succeeded with such ap-
parent ease ?

He felt a sudden hatred of the house he was in
and of everything and everybody in it. Feeling
pursued, accompanied by mocking demons, he hur-
ried out of the dining-room and made his way into
the square hall or atrium, as old Theophilus Joy had
called it. Each of the marble figures there seemed
alive to his humiliation and defeat.

62

JANE OGLANDER 63

Passing into a vestibule which led directly out of
doors he put on a light coat, for he was delicate,
Mrs. Maule would have said over-careful of himself
— then he jammed a wide-brimmed soft hat on his
head, and quietly let himself out of the house.

It was a still, warm night, but the moist fragrant
air was heavy with the premonition of coming win-
ter. Wantele walked a certain distance down the
broad carriage way, then he cut sharply to the left,
among the brambles and underwood, under high
beech trees. Once there, he began to walk more
slowly, keeping to the narrow path by a kind of in-
stinct.

He welcomed the tangible fact of solitude. Even
were he urgently sought for, it would be a long time
before they could find him unless he himself raised
his voice and gave a hulloo. Richard, for once,
must spend his evening solitary.

Could she have seen Wantele's long thin face as
it was now, serious with the seriousness born of dis-
tress, Athena Maule would have been satisfied that
the news she had been at the pains to tell in so dra-
matic a fashion had struck at the heart of at least
one of her hearers.

Dick Wantele belonged to the type of man who
achieves what he desires to achieve because his de-
sire is generally well within the measure of his
powers.

He had been confident that in time he would wear
down Jane Oglander's gentle resistance, and lately

64 JANE OGLANDER

— at the very time she had been corresponding with
General Lingard, certainly receiving and perhaps
even writing love-letters — he had believed that she
was making up her mind to reward him for what
had become his long fidelity. He had even gone so
far as to think that only Athena Maule's watchful
antagonism stood between Jane Oglander and him-
self.

To Wantele, the knowledge that he had been a
fool stung intolerably. He had one poor consola-
tion, the consolation of knowing that he had hidden
successfully the various feelings provoked in him
by the announcement, both from the cruel eyes and
from the kind eyes which had watched to see how
he took news which meant so much to him. But
that, after all, was but an ignoble consolation in his
great bereavement.

Walking there in the darkness, with memory as
his only companion, he realised all too shrewdly
what the disappearance of Jane Oglander from his
life would mean. Till to-night, Wantele had been
wont to tell himself bitterly that the existence he
was forced to lead was one by no means to be en-
vied by other men of his age and standing. But he
now looked back to yesterday with longing, for yes-
terday still held a future of which the major possi-
bility was the fact that Jane might become his wife.

He had first met Miss Oglander at a moment
when he had just come through a terrible secret

JANE OGLANDER 65

crisis, one which had left him free of all the familiar
moorings of his early life.

He had touched pitch, and to his own conscience
and imagination he had been most vilely defiled.
And yet circumstances had made it imperative that
he should not only pretend to be clean, but also that
he should affect complete ignorance of the pitch he
had touched. Jane Oglander, then a young, clear-
eyed girl, with a certain tender gaiety, a straight-
forward simplicity of nature which had strongly ap-
pealed to his own more complex character, had
helped him and indeed made it possible for him to
do this.

Then had come Jack Oglander's mad act and its
awful consequences, and even this had helped Dick
Wantele further to obliterate the memory of his
own ignominious secret. He had thrown himself,
with his cousin, Richard Maule's, full assent, into
the whole terrible business, and Jane Oglander had
found his dry sense and quiet, efficient help an un-
told comfort. No wonder the ties of confidence
and friendship between them had grown ever closer
and closer, seeming to justify the young man in the
hope that the time must come when Jane would
become his wife.

To-night the news flung at him by Athena Maule
wiped out the immediate peaceful past, and phan-
toms which he believed himself to have banished
for ever sprang into being — dread reminders that

66 JANE OGLANDER

no man can ever hope to escape wholly from his
past.

At last, with a feeling of lassitude and relief he
came to a broad low gate. The gate was locked,
but he climbed over it, as he had often done before.
The path went on still under trees and among under-
wood till it widened and became merged in a clear-
ing, in the middle of which stood a long low build-
ing still called by its old name of the Small Farm,
and now the home of one to whom Wantele often
made his way in moments of depression and revolt.

When Dick Wantele had first made Mabel Dig-
by's acquaintance, she had been a plain, observant,
self-reliant little girl of nine, whose most striking
features were bright brown eyes set in a fair freckled
face, and masses of light yellow hair worn by her
in two long pigtails. The only child of a certain
Colonel Digby, whose death had taken place when
she was sixteen, Mabel Digby had elected to go on
living in the place where her father had brought
her motherless, seven years before, and Dick Wan-
tele had been largely instrumental in her settlement
in the old farmhouse which was on the edge of the
Rede Place estate.

At first the governess who had brought her up,
and who had educated her in the old-fashioned,
thorough, and perhaps rather limited way more
usual forty years ago than now, had lived with her ;
but when Mabel was nineteen this lady had had to

JANE OGLANDER 67

go bade to her own people, and she had had no suc-
cessor.

To the scandal rather than to the surprise of the
neighbourhood, Miss Digby decided that henceforth
she would live alone. She was well aware, though
those about her were not, that her father's old sol-
dier servant and his wife were really more efficient
and vigilant chaperons than the kind, gentle gov-
erness had been.

With Wantele the relations of Mabel Digby had
always been of a singularly close and sexless nature.
She had naturally begun by looking at him with her
father's, the old Indian Mutiny veteran's eyes ; that
is, she had been gently tolerant of his fads, while
neither understanding nor sharing them.

Then, as she grew older, as she read the books
that he lent her and talked over with her, she had
moved some way from her father's — the simple-
minded soldier's — position, and she judged Dick
Wantele rather hardly, half despising him for hav-
ing so contentedly, or so she thought, sunk into the
position of adopted son to his wealthy cousin. When
she had become aware that he desired to marry
Jane Oglander, a fact of which she had possessed
herself by asking him the direct question, and re-
ceiving an equally direct answer, she had at once
decided that he was not nearly good enough for the
lady on whom he had fixed his affection, and time
had in no sense modified her first view.

68 JANE OGLANDER

Still, without her knowing it, Dick Wantele
counted for much in Mabel Digby's life. She was
proud of his friendship and believed herself to be
the recipient of all his secrets. When he was at-
tacked, as he often was in her presence — for she was
on the whole liked, and he was regarded by the
neighbourhood as " superior " and " supercilious "
— she always took his part.

Intimate as they were with one another, and with
that comfortable intimacy which knows nothing of
the doubts or recriminations which lead to what
are significantly called " lovers' quarrels," there
were subjects on which neither ever touched to the
other. Never since the day on which Mabel Digby,
at the time only fifteen, had asked him the indis-
creet question which she was now ashamed to re-
member, had either made any allusion to Wantele's
feeling for Jane Oglander. The other subject which
was taboo between them was Mabel Digby's rela-
tion to young Kaye.

Wantele was no schemer, but there w'as some-
thing in him which made him aware of the schemes
of others, even against his own will and desire. He
had become aware that Mrs. Kaye regarded Mabel
Digby as a suitable daughter-in-law elect, almost on
the day that the thought had first presented itself to
the clergyman's wife and on Mabel's behalf he had
at once said to himself, " Why not? " But during
the last year he had been glad to believe that Mabel
had so little suspected or assented to Mrs. Kaye's

JANE OGLANDER 69

wishes as to ignore her one-time playfellow's in-
fatuation for Athena.

His eyes had become accustomed to the star-lit
darkness, and he could see the straight stone-flagged
path which led to the porch of the Small Farm. As
he walked up it a dog rushed out from its kennel
and began barking. " Be quiet," said Wantele
harshly. " Be quiet, old dog ! Keep that sort of
thing for your enemies and the enemies of your
mistress — not for me."

Then he walked on, the dog at his heels, till he
got to the porch. There he waited for a moment,
for it had suddenly occurred to him that Mabel
Digby might not be alone; one of the tiresome peo-
ple who lived in Redyford — the village which had
now grown into a town — might be spending the
evening with her. Before knocking at her door he
must assure himself that she was alone. Old friends
as he and she were, he had never come there before
so late as this.

He walked on past the porch, till he stood oppo-
site the uncurtained window of the curious hall
dining-room of the person he had come to see. He
remembered that Colonel Digby had hated curtains,
and that his daughter shared the prejudice.

Mabel Digby was dressed in the rather old-fash-
ioned looking high white muslin dress she generally
wore in the evening when at home by herself. Her
fair hair was drawn back very plainly from her fore-

70 JANE OGLANDER

head, and coiled in innumerable plaits. Colonel
Digby had desired his girl to do her hair in that
way when she had first turned it up, and by a queer
little bit of sentiment in a nature which prided itself
on its lack of sentiment, Mabel had always remained
faithful to her father's fancy.

Sitting on a low chair between the deep fireplace
and the long narrow oak table which ran down the
middle of the room, Mabel Digby was now engaged
in burning packets of letters, and she was going
through the disagreeable task in the rather precise
way which made her do well whatever she took in
hand. Her long and not very easy task was nearly
at an end, and Wantele saw clearly the few letters
that remained scattered on the table. He recog-
nised the bold black handwriting, the large square
envelopes, the blue Indian stamps.

"How odd," he told himself, "that the child
should have waited till to-night to burn these old let-
ters of Bayworth Kaye! "

Mabel had never made any secret of her corre-
spondence with the young soldier. Still, when one
came to think of it, it was odd that she had troubled
to keep Bayworth's letters — odder still that now to-
night, the day of Bayworth Kaye's departure, she
should be burning them. . . .

After all, why should he go in and see her now?
People have to bear certain troubles alone. Mabel
Digby had set him, in this matter, a good example.

JANE OGL'ANDER 71

Wantele turned on his heel. He walked on to the
grass and plunged into the herbaceous border which
still formed a fragrant autumn hedge to the little
lawn. His object was to get away without being
seen or heard, by the gate which gave on to the
country road and which formed the proper, ortho-
dox entrance to the Small Farm. But as he was
making his way to the gate the front door opened,
and Mabel Digby came out into the darkness.

" Aren't you coming in, Dick ? " she called out.
" I couldn't think what had happened to you ! I saw
you at the window, and then you disappeared sud-
denly. Why didn't you let yourself in? The door
isn't locked, but the gate is." Mabel Digby had a
loud, rather childish voice, but now Wantele was
glad enough to turn and follow her into the low-
pitched living room of the old farmhouse.

As he walked through into the curious and charm-
ing room, at once so like and so unlike the living-
rooms of the smaller farms on his cousin's estate, he
saw that Mabel Digby had thrown a large, brightly-
coloured Italian handkerchief over those of the let-
ters which still remained on the table.

" The women in the cottages do that," she said,
following the direction of his eyes. " When they
hear the step of a visitor at the door, they throw
a dishcloth over whatever it is they want to hide,
the little drop of comfort or what not, but it doesn't
deceive the visitor — at least it never deceives me!

72 JANE OGLANDER

I always know what there is under the dishcloth.
And you know — I mean you saw, Dick, what there
is under my dishcloth."

She spoke quickly, a little defiantly. Her
cheeks were burning, her brown eyes very bright.
She also felt unhappy, moved out of her usual self
to-night.

Wantele walked over to the fireplace. He sat
down in the ingle nook and held out his hands. He
was a chilly creature, and though he had been walk-
ing fast he felt curiously cold.

Poor little Mabel ! This was interesting and —
and rather sad. He wondered uncomfortably how
much she had seen, guessed, of Bayworth's infatu-
ation for Athena Maule. She must have seen some-
thing. . . .

" Yes," he said at last. " It's never much use
trying to prevent one's neighbours knowing what
one's got under one's dishcloth. But there have
never been any letters under mine. As a matter
of principle I always burn any letters I receive,
however temporarily precious they may be."

" There's a great deal to be said for your plan,"
she said. Then she began tearing up each of the
few letters which remained on the long oak table,
and threw the pieces, one by one, into the heart of
the fire.

He watched her in uncomfortable silence. At
last she came and sat down opposite Wantele.

" I suppose you have heard the great news," he

JANE OGLANDER 73

said abruptly. " I mean, the piece of good for-
tune which has befallen the Paches ? "

The girl looked up. Wantele was still staring
into the fire, but his expression told her nothing.

"No," she said indifferently, "what is it?"

" They've got General Lingard staying with
them, and they're bringing him over to dinner
on Tuesday. Athena is going to ask you to meet
him."

" Lingard ? " cried the girl. " Not Lingard of
the Amadawa Expedition ! D'you really mean that
I'm going to meet him?"

A ring of genuine pleasure had come into the
young voice which a few moments before had only
too plainly told a tale of dejection and bitterness.

Wantele turned and looked at her. For the first
time that evening he smiled broadly, and there came
into his eyes the humorous light which generally
dwelt there.

" I suppose you know all about him," he said
dryly. " I suppose you followed every step of the
Expedition? "

" Of course I did ! " she exclaimed. " How
father would have loved to meet General Lingard "
— there came a touch of keen regret into her voice.

" I expect you'll meet your hero very often be-
fore you've done with him, Mabel " — as he said
the words he struck a match and lit a cigarette —
" for he and Jane Oglander are going to be mar-
ried."

74 JANE OGLANDER

"General Lingard and Jane Oglander?" Mabel
could not keep a measure of extreme surprise and
excitement out of her voice, but she was, what her
dead father's old soldier servant always described
her as being, " a thorough little lady," and after
hearing Wantele's quiet word of assent to her in-
voluntary question, she refrained, without any
seeming effort, from pursuing the subject.

At last Wantele got up. " Well," he said. " Well,
Mabel ? This is a queer, ' unked ' kind of world,
isn't it?"

She nodded her head, and without offering him
her hand she unlatched the door.

When she knew him to be well away, she came
back and, laying her head on the table, burst into
tears. She loved Jane Oglander — she rejoiced in
Jane's good fortune — but the contrast was too
great between Jane's fate and hers.

But for Athena Maule, but for the spell Athena
had cast over Bayworth Kaye, she, Mabel, would
probably by now have been Bayworth's wife, on
the way to India — India the land of her childish, of
her girlish dreams.

CHAPTER V

"Nay, but the maddest gambler throws his heart."

Richard Maule waited a while to see if his cou-
sin would come to him, and then he went up to his
bedroom.

He soon dismissed his man-servant, and the book
he had meant to read in the night — a book on the
newly-revealed treasures of Cretan art — lay ready
to his feeble hand on the table by the wide, low
bed which was the only new piece of furniture
placed there since the room had been the nursery
of his happy childhood. But he felt unwontedly
restless, and soon he began moving about the low-
ceilinged, square room with dragging, heavy foot-
steps.

When they had brought him back ill to death, as
he had hoped, from Italy eight years before, it
was here that he had insisted on being put; and
there were good reasons for his choice, for the
room communicated by easy shallow stairs with
that part of the house where were the Greek Room,
and the library which had been arranged for him
by his grandfather as a delightful surprise on his
seventeenth birthday.

Mr. Maule's bed-chamber was in odd contrast to

75

76 JANE OGLANDER

the rest of Rede Place. The furnishings were
frankly ugly, substantial veneered furniture had
been chosen by the sensible, middle-aged woman to
whom Theophilus Joy, after anxious consultation
with the leading doctor of the day, had confided
his precious orphan grandson. His old nurse's
clean, self-respecting presence haunted, not unpleas-
antly, the room at times when Richard Maule only
asked to forget the present in the past.

His wife, Athena, had never been in this room.
Even when he was lying helpless, scarcely able to
make himself understood by his nurses, the stricken
man had been able to convey his strong wish con-
cerning this matter of his wife's banishment from
his sick room to Dick Wantele, and Athena had
quietly acquiesced. . . .

As time had gone on, Richard Maule had be-
come in a very real sense master of this one room ;
here at least none had the right to disturb him or
to spy on his infirmities unless he gave them leave.

He went across to the window which commanded
a side view of the door by which the inmates of
Rede Place generally let themselves in and out.
Dick, so he felt sure, was out of doors — no doubt
walking ofT, as the young and hale are able to do,
his anger and his pain.

A great yearning for his kinsman came over
Richard Maule. Drawing the folds of his luxuri-
ous dressing-gown round his shrunken limbs, he
painfully pushed a chair to a window and sat down

JANE OGLANDER 77

tSere. And as he looked out into the October night,
waiting for the sound which would tell him that
Dick had come in, he allowed himself to do what
he very seldom did — he thought of the past and
surveyed, dispassionately, the present.

To the majority of people there is something re-
pugnant in the sight of an old man married to a
lovely young woman, and this feeling is naturally
intensified when the husband happens to be in any
way infirm. Richard Maule was aware that these
were the feelings with which he and his wife had
long been regarded, both by their immediate neigh-
bours and by the larger circle of the outer world
where Mrs. Maule enjoyed the popularity so easily
accorded to any woman who contributes beauty
and a measure of agreeable animation to the com-
mon stock.

But this knowledge, painful as it might have been
to a proud and sensitive man, found Richard Maule
almost indifferent. Had he been compelled to de-
fine his feeling in words, he would probably have
observed that, after having brought his life to such
utter shipwreck as he had done, this added morti-
fication was not of a nature to trouble him greatly.

Richard Maule, in his day, and still by courtesy,
a noted Hellenist, had come to a sure if secret con-
clusion concerning human life. He believed that
the old Greeks were right in thinking that Fate
dogs the steps of the fortunate, and lies in ambush
eager to deal those who are too happy stinging,

78 JANE OGLANDER

and sometimes deadly, blows. How else account
for that which had befallen himself?

Till he had been forty-four, that is, till only ten
years ago — for Richard Maule was by no means
old as age counts now — his life had been, so he
was now tempted to think looking back, ideal from
every point of view.

True, he had lost both his parents in childhood,
but he had been adored and tenderly cherished by
his mother's father, the cultivated, benignant Theo-
philus Joy, of whom he often thought with a vivid
affection and gratitude seldom vouchsafed to the
dead. He trusted that the old man in the Elysian
Fields was ignorant of the strange gloom which
now enwrapped Rede Place.

The Fate in which Richard Maule believed had
only dealt two backward blows at the cultivated
hedonist whom Richard Maule now knew his
grandfather to have been. One had been the
premature death, by consumption, of the wife so
carefully chosen, to whom there had never been a
successor; and then, twenty-two years later, the
death of his only child, Richard Maule's mother.

But these two offerings had satisfied grim Neme-
sis, and perhaps it was open to question whether
the creator of Rede Place had not spent a really
happier old age in moulding and fashioning his
grandson, as far as possible, to his own image,
than if the beloved wife and only daughter had
lived.

JANE OGLANDER 79

In these latter days, when Richard Maule was
enduring, not enjoying, Hfe, he was apt to find a
certain consolation in going back to the days of his
delightful childhood. His grandfather had been
the King, he the Heir Apparent, of a kingdom full
of infinite delights and happy surprises to an imag-
inative and highly-strung little boy.

Each of the ornate rooms of Rede Place, each of
the grassy glades outside, was to him peopled with
groups of agreeable ghosts — the ghosts of the
clever men and witty women whom his grandfather
delighted to bring there at certain times of each
year, especially during the three summer months,
when the beautiful pleasaunce he had created out
of an equally exquisite wilderness was in glowing
perfection.

The only dark period of the boy's life — and that
he would now have been unwilling to admit — was
the two years spent at Eton — the Eton of the 'six-
ties. His grandfather, though worldly-wise enough
not to wish the lad to grow up too singular a human
being, had not realized that the life he had made
his grandson lead up to the age of fourteen was not
a fit preliminary to a public school. At the end of
two years the boy was withdrawn from Eton and
once more entrusted, as he had been before, to the
care of an intelligent tutor, and to teachers of for-
eign tongues.

Oxford proved more successful, but with Balliol,
with which he had many pleasant memories. Rich-

8o JANE OGLANDER

ard Matile had one sad association. It was while
he was sitting- there in Hall that he had received
the news of his grandfather's death.

Then had begun for Richard Maule the second
happy period of his life.

He had become a wanderer, but a wanderer pos-
sessed of the carpet of Fortunatus, and with a
youth, a vigour, a zest for life sharpened to finer
issues than had been the nature of Theophilus Joy.

Very soon Richard Maule made a real place for
himself among that band of thinkers and lovers of
the best which may always be found at the apex of
every civilised society. His enthusiasm for the
Greece of the past translated itself into an ardent
love of modern Attica. He built a villa on Penteli-
cus, and there, within sight of the ^gean waters,
he dreamed dreams with the Greek patriots to
whose aspirations he showed himself willing to sac-
rifice, if need be, both blood and treasure. There
also he would bring together each winter bands of
young Englishmen, dowered with more romance
than pence. The very brigands respected the rose-
red marble villa and its English owner, and Greece
for many years was his true country and his fa-
vourite dwelling-place.

This being so, it was perhaps not so very strange
that in time Richard Maule should have chosen an
Ionian wife. His large circle — for in those days
the owner of Rede Place was a man with admiring
friends in every rank and condition of life, almost,

JANE OGLANDER 8l

it might be said, in every country and capital of
Europe — were much interested to learn that if Mrs.
Maule had borne before her marriage the respecta-
ble English name of Durdon, she was through her
Greek mother a ]\Iessala, the representative of a
house whose ancestors had borne titles transmitted
to them from the days when Venice held sway over
the seven islands.

As was meet, the philo-Hellenist had met his fu-
ture wife during a stay in Athens, and to him there
had been something at once fragrant and austere in
a courtship conducted in a rather humble villa
reared on the cliff at Phaleron, from whose cramped
verandah there lay unrolled the marvellous pano-
rama of the plain of Athens, and eastwards, across
the bay, Hymettus.

It was there that Athena Durdon, her beauty
made the more nymph-like and ethereal by the opal-
escent light of a May moon, consented to exchange
the meagre life which had been led by her in the
past as daughter of the British Vice-Consul at Ath-
ens, for the life she had only known — ^but known
how well ! — in dreams, that of the wife of an Eng-
lishman possessed of a limitless purse and the key
to every world.

Now, to-night, looking back on it all, stirred out
of his usual apathetic endurance by the knowledge
of what Dick Wantele was feeling, Richard Maule
smiled, a grim inward smile, when he remembered
how, even during their brief honeymoon, spent at

82 JANE OGLANDER

his ardent desire at Corinth, Athena had made it
quite clear that what she longed for was Paris,
London, or perhaps it would be more true to say
the Champs Elysees and Mayfair! They had been
standing — he looking far younger than his forty-
five years, she in one of the white gowns in which
he loved to see her, but the simplicity of which she
even then deplored — close to the Pierian spring,
when she had, by a few playful, but very eager,
words shown him what was in her heart.

And yet, whatever he might now believe, during
the first two years which had followed his marriage
Richard Maule had been a happy man — happier,
he had been then wont to assure himself, than in
the days before he had married his enchanting, way-
ward, and often tantalisingly mysterious Athena.
In those days none had ever seemed to regard Rich-
ard Maule as unreasonably older than Athena, for
he had retained an amazing look, as also an amaz-
ing feeling, of youth.

Then in a day, an hour, nay a moment, he had
been struck down.

Not even his cousin, the young man whom he
now trusted and loved as men only trust and love
an only son, had ever received any explanation of
what had happened. To that stroke — that act of
the malicious gods, as Richard Maule believed —
neither he nor his wife ever made any allusion;
indeed, when Dick Wantele had once spoken of

JANE OGLANDER 83

the matter to Athena she had shrunk from the sub-
ject with shuddering annoyance.

The facts were briefly these. Richard Maule,
walking in the garden of a villa he had taken close
to Naples, had suddenly been seized with some kind
of physical attack. He had lain in the hot sun till
by a fortunate chance there had come up to where
he was lying his wife, Athena herself. She had
been accompanied by a young man, an Italian
protege of the Maules, who had discovered well-
born musical genius starving in a garret of the pa-
ternal palace he had had to let out in suites of
apartments to pay debts contracted not only by
himself but by his brothers.

This youth had been treated with the kindliest,
most delicate generosity by the man whom he was
wont to describe as his English saviour. The two,
Mrs. Maule and the young Italian count, had been
in a summer-house not many yards from where Mr.
Maule must have fallen, but so absorbed had they
been in a score on which the count was working
that they had heard and seen nothing of what was
happening in the garden outside.

One curious effect of the change in Mr. Maule's
physical condition was the sudden dislike, almost
horror, he betrayed for the genius to whom he had
been so kind. So it had finally been arranged by
Mrs. Maule, with, it was understood, the full assent
of her husband, that the young man whose friend-
ship with his benefactor had been so strangely and

84 JANE OGLANDER

sadly interrupted, should continue his musical
studies at the latter's expense, the only stipulation
being that he should never come to England when
the Maules happened to be there.

Since that time, that is eight years ago, Richard
Maule had practically recovered, not his health, but
v^^hat he was inclined to style with a twisted smile,
his wits.

Suddenly Dick Wantele's dark figure emerged
into the moonlight from under the trees which in
the daytime now formed a ruddy wall round the
formal gardens of Rede Place. Mr. Maule moved
back from his window. He did not wish Dick to
think he had been waiting, watching for him.

And then the sight of the dark figure in the
moonlight had recalled to the owner of Rede Place
other vigils kept by him during the last year.

Sometimes, very often of late, Bayworth Kaye,
unthinking of the honour of the woman he loved,
had tried to lengthen the precious moments he was
to spend with her by striking across that piece of
moonlit sward which could be seen so clearly from
Richard Maule's window.

But the young soldier had always left the house
by a more secret way — Athena had seen to that — a
way that led almost straight from her boudoir on
the ground floor of the house into the Arboretum
and so into the wider stretches of the wooded park.

CHAPTER VI
" Friendship, I fancy, means one heart between two."

Dick Wantele opened the door of the drawing-
room. Lined with panels of cedar-wood and
sparsely furnished with fine examples of early
French Empire furniture, the great room looked,
as did so many of the apartments of Rede Place,
foreign rather than English, and it was only used
by Mr. and Mrs. Maule on the rare occasions when
they gave a dinner-party.

The master and mistress of Rede Place were
awaiting their guests. Richard Maule, his figure
looking thinner, more attenuated than ever, leant
heavily with his right hand on a stick, his left lay
on the mantelpiece. Dick noticed that he looked
more alive than usual ; there were two spots of red
on his cheeks. Mrs. Maule was moving restlessly
about the room : she disliked exceedingly finding
herself alone with her husband, and she seldom al-
lowed so untoward an accident to befall her.

Wantele looked at her curiously. His cousin's
wife had the power of ever surprising him anew.
To-night it was her dress which surprised him. It
was deep purple in tint, of a diaphanous material,
and rendered opalescent, shot with gleams of pale

85

86 JANE OGLANDER

blue and pale yellow, by some cunning arrangement
of silk underneath. Made, as even he could see,
with but slight regard to the fashion of the mo-
ment, Wantele realised that this gown, beautiful,
even magnificent as was its effect, would not appear
a proper evening dress to the conventional eye of
Mrs. Pache and of Mrs. Pache's daughter.

A fold of the thin shimmering stuff veiled Ath-
ena's dimpled shoulders, and swept up almost to
her throat, and her arms gleamed whitely through
cunningly arranged twists of the same transparent
stuff carried down to the wrist.

Her dark, naturally curling hair, instead of being
puffed out stiffly as was the ugly fashion of the
moment, was braided closely to her head, and on
her head was placed a wreath made of bunches of
small deep purple grapes unrelieved by leaves. The
only ornament worn by her was a large burnt topaz
— that stone which fire turns a rose red tint — at-
tached to a seed pearl chain.

Wantele told himself with rueful amusement that
Mrs. Pache would probably take the opportunity
of wearing this evening her ancient diamond tiara
and her most decollete gown.

" I suppose you'll come back here after dinner? "
he addressed Athena, and as he spoke he could not
help telling himself that she was really enchant-
ingly lovely. Mrs. Maule looked to-night as if she
had stepped down from one of the friezes of the
Parthenon, or perhaps had leapt from a slender vase

JANE OGLANDER 87

garlanded with nymphs dancing to the strains of
celestial music.

The Frenchman who had designed her dress
was evidently, as are so many modern Parisians,
a lover and a student of Greek art.

" Yes, I suppose we must. It would be cruel to
inflict Mrs. Pache and Patty on Richard."

But she did not look at her husband while she
spoke. She often conveyed messages, and even
asked questions of him, by the oblique medium of
Dick Wantele.

Richard Maule gave no sign of having heard
her words.

" I suppose you will like to have a talk with Gen-
eral Lingard ? " The young man turned to the
silent, frail-looking figure standing by the mantel-
piece. He was himself unaware of how much his
tone changed and softened when he addressed his
cousin.

" Yes, I'd like a few words with General Lin-
gard. I wonder if Jane has told him that I'm her
trustee. Perhaps he won't mind coming in alone
to me for a few moments."

" Miss Digby."

The girl advanced into the room a little timidly.
She had put on her best evening gown in honour
of the famous soldier who was Jane Oglander's
betrothed. It was a pale blue satin dress, touched
here and there with pink. Wantele told himself

88 JANE OGLANDER

regretfully that Mabel Digby's gown looked stiff,
commonplace, in fact positively ugly, by contrast
with Athena's beautiful costume. He liked Mabel
best in the plain coats and skirts, the simple flannel
or linen shirts, she always wore in the daytime.

The door was again flung open, and a small
crowd of people came into the room. Mrs. Pache
was wearing, as Wantele noticed with concern, her
tiara, and a mauve velvet dress which had done
duty at one of the last of Queen Victoria's Drawing-
rooms. Hard on her mother followed Patty Pache,
looking as her type of young English womanhood
so often looks, younger than twenty-seven, which
was her age; and then Mr. Pache and his son Tom,
the latter a neat young man with a pleasant job in
the Board of Trade, whom his mother fondly be-
lieved to be one of the governing forces of the
Empire. Lagging behind the others was a tall lean
man wearing old-fashioned, not very well-cut even-
ing clothes. This must of course be General Lin-
gard, the guest of the evening.

Richard Maule steadied himself on his stick and
took a step forward. There was a moment of con-
fused talking and of hand-shaking. Dick Wantele
and Mabel Digby drew a little to one side. Mrs.
Pache's face broke into a nervous smile. She was
wondering whether high dresses were about to be-
come the fashion, or whether Mrs. Maule had a
cold.

JANE OGLANDER 89

" May I introduce you," she said, " I mean may
I introduce to you my husband's cousin. General
Lingard ? I think you must have heard us speak of
him "

Athena Maule held out her little hand ; it lay for
a moment grasped in the strong fingers of her guest.
She smiled up into his face, and instantly Lingard
knew her for the woman in the railway carriage,
the woman he had — snubbed ; the woman he had
— defended. " I have often heard of General Lin-
gard— not only from you " — she hesitated a mo-
ment— " but also from others, dear Mrs. Pache."

Tom Pache gave a sudden laugh, as if his hostess
had made an extraordinarily witty joke, and x\th-
ena nodded at him gaily. He and she were excel-
lent friends, though Tom had never, strange to
say, fallen in love with her.

For a moment the five men stood together on
the hearthrug.

No formal introduction had taken place between
Wantele and Lingard, but each man looked at the
other with a keen, measuring look. " My cousin
never dines with us," Dick said in a low voice,
*' but we shall join him after dinner. He is look-
ing forward to a talk with you." Then he turned
to young Pache. " I'm afraid, Tom, you'll have
to take in your sister. There's no way out of it ! "

Tom Pache made a little face of mock resig-
nation.

90 JANE OGLANDER

"Isn't Miss Oglander here?" he whispered.
" Why isn't Miss Oglander here ? " Then he drew
the other aside. " I say, Dick, isn't this a go?"

Wantele nodded his head ; a wry smile came over
his thin lips. " Yes, it is rather a go," he an-
swered dryly.

" We didn't even know Hew Lingard knew Miss
Oglander!"

" And we only knew quite lately that you were
related to General Lingard."

Tom Pache grinned. " Father was his guardian,
and would go on guardianing him after he was
grown up. He and my father had a row — years
ago. But of course we made it up with him when
he blossomed out into a famous character. Mother
wrote and asked him to stay with us last time he
was in England. He wouldn't come then. But
the other day he wrote her quite a decent letter
telling her of his engagement. They don't want it
announced — I can't think why "

" I suppose they both hate fuss," said Wantele
briefly. " We tried to get Jane here before to-night
— but she's nursing a sick friend, and she can't come
for another week. By the way, I've forgotten to
ask how you like your motor? "

" Ripping ! " said young Pache briefly. " Un-
luckily Patty insists on driving it, and father
weakly lets her do it."

Dinner was announced, and the four curiously
assorted couples went into the dining-room.

JANE OGLANDER 91

While avoiding looking at him across the round
table, Wantele was intently conscious of the pres-
ence of the man who was to become Jane Ogland-
er's husband.

Hew Lingard was absolutely unlike what he had
expected him to be. Wantele had never cared for
soldiers, while admitting unwillingly that there
must be in the great leaders qualities very different
from those which adorned his few military ac-
quaintances. He had thought to see a trim, well-
groomed — hateful but expressive phrase! — good-
looking man. He saw before him a loosely-built,
powerful figure and a dark, clean-shaven face, of
which the dominant features were the strong jaw
and secretive-looking mouth, which seemed rather
to recall the wild soldier of fortune of another
epoch than the shrewd strategist and coldly able
organiser Lingard had shown himself to be.

Newspaper readers had been told how extraor-
dinary was Lingard's personal influence over his
men. An influence exerted not only over his own
soldiers, but over the friendly native tribesmen.

Wantele, who read widely and who remembered
what he read, recalled a phrase which had caught
his fancy, a phrase invented to meet a very differ-
ent case :

" They grow, like hounds, fond of the man
who shows them sport, and by whose hallo
they are wont to be encouraged."

92 JANE OGLANDER

Lingard looked a man who could show
sport. . . .

Almost against his will, he could not help liking
the look of Jane Oglander's lover. There was
humour as well as keen intelligence in Hew Lin-
gard's ugly face. When he smiled, his large mouth
had generous curves which belied the strong, stern
jaw. Wantele divined that he was half amused,
half ashamed, at the honours which were now be-
ing heaped upon him, and certainly he was doing
his best to make all those about him forget that he
was in any sense unlike themselves.

Wantele also became aware, with a satisfaction
he would have found it hard to analyse, that Gen-
eral Lingard was paying no special attention to
his hostess ; or rather, while paying Mrs. Maule all
the attention that was her due, there was quite
wanting in his manner any touch of the ardent in-
terest, the involuntary emotion, which most men
showed when brought in contact for the first time
with Athena. And yet how beautiful she looked
to-night! How full of that subdued, eloquent ra-
diance which is the dangerous attribute of a cer-
tain type of rare feminine loveliness!

Mrs. Maule was making herself charming —
charming, not only to the famous soldier who was
her guest, but also to the dull old man who sat on
her other side, and to his tiresome, pompous wife.
She was also showing surprising knowledge of

JANE OGLANDER 93

those local interests which she was supposed to
despise.

Wantele's mind travelled back to the last time a
dinner-party had been given at Rede Place.

Jane Oglander had been there, and on that oc-
casion Athena had been in one of her ill moods,
proclaiming with rather haughty irony her con-
tempt for the dull neighbourhood in which she had
perforce to live during certain portions of each
year. Wantele remembered how he had watched
her with a certain lazy annoyance, too content to
feel really angry, for Jane Oglander had been di-
vinely kind to him that day, and he had thought
— poor fool that he had been ! — that at last he was
adventuring further than she had yet allowed him
to do into her reserved, sensitive nature.

How little we poor humans know of what the
future holds for us ! Till a few days ago Dick had
always thought of himself as a young man. To-
night he felt that youth lay behind him — so far
behind as to be almost forgotten — as the three
young people talked and laughed across him to one
another.

Athena was now talking to Mr. Pache, inclin-
ing her graceful head towards him with an air of
amiable, placid interest ; and, as Wantele noted with
satirical amusement, Mr. Pache had the foolish,
happy look that even the most sensible of elderly
men assume when talking to a very pretty woman.

94 JANE OGLANDER

Mrs. Pache did not look either happy or at ease.
Even to a nimble mind it is difficult entirely to
readjust one's views of a human being. Till a short
time ago, in fact till his name began to be fre-
quently mentioned in the Morning Post, the worthy
lady had considered Hew Lingard the black sheep
of her husband's highly respectable family.

There had once been a great trouble about him.
That was a good many years ago — perhaps as
much as seventeen years ago, just at the time that
dear Tom had had the measles. She had tried to
pump her husband about it last night, but he had
refused to say anything, which was very tiresome,
and she couldn't remember much about it.

Hew Lingard had got into a scrape with a
woman; that static, dreadful fact of course Mrs.
Pache remembered. Such things are never forgot-
ten by the Mrs. Paches of this world. It was worse
than a scrape, for Hew had nearly married a most
unsuitable person — in fact he would have married
her if the person hadn't at the last moment made
up her mind that he wasn't good enough.

That was pretty well all Mrs. Pache could re-
member about it. She hadn't forgotten that rather
vulgar phrase " not good enough," because her
husband had come back from London to Norfolk,
where they were then living, and had walked into
the room with the words : " Well, it's all over
and done with ! She's gone and married another
young fool whom she has had up her sleeve the

JANE OGLANDER 95

whole time! She didn't think Hew Lingard good
enough ! "

Hew had taken the business very hard, instead
of rejoicing as he ought to have done at his lucky
escape. And they, the Paches, had seen nothing
of him for many years.

Three years ago, however, dear Tom had made
her write to Hew Lingard, and though Hew had
refused her kind invitation, he had written quite
a nice letter.

This time both she and her husband had written
to him, reminding him — strangely enough, they had
both used the same phrase in their letters — that
" blood is thicker than water," and urging their
now creditable relative to pay them a long visit.

In accepting the invitation, Hew Lingard had
announced his engagement to Jane Oglander — the
Miss Oglander whom they all knew so well, the
Jane Oglander who was often, for weeks at a time,
one of their nearest neighbours, and who, every-
body had thought, would end by marrying Dick
Wantele !

Still, to-night Mrs. Pache told herself that Hew
Lingard's engagement to Miss Oglander was odd
— odd was the word which Mrs. Pache had used
in this connection, not once but many times, when
discussing the matter with her sleepy husband on
the night Hew Lingard's letter had come, and
when eagerly talking it over with her daughter
the next morning.

96 JANE OGLANDER

It was so odd that Jane Oglander had never
spoken of General Lingard. Surely she must have
known that they, the Paches, were closely related
to him ? It was to be hoped that now Hew Lingard
had become a great man, he was not going to be
ashamed of the relations who had always been so
kind to him, and who in the past, when he was an
unsatisfactory, eccentric young man, had always ad-
vised him for his good.

What a pity it was that Hew had been in such a
hurry! From what they could make out he must
have gone and proposed to Miss Oglander the very
day of his arrival in London.

And then there was that disgraceful story about
Miss Oglander's brother. It was indeed a pity Hew
Lingard hadn't waited a bit! He might marry
anybody now — a girl, for instance, whose people
were connected with the Government, someone who
could help on dear Tom, and get him promotion.
Jane Oglander was very nice, thoroughly nice, but
she would never be of any use to the Pache family.

Such were the troubled and disconnected
thoughts which hurried through Mrs. Pache's mind
while she listened with apparent attention to her
odd, but now celebrated kinsman. General Lin-
gard was trying to make himself pleasant to his
cousin Annie by telling her of a missionary expe-
dition to Tibet.

Mrs. Pache had always been interested in mis-
sionaries; she was a subscriber to the S.P.C.K.

JANE OGLANDER 97

The Society's publications satisfied that passion for
romance which sometimes survives in the most
commonplace human being, especially if that hu-
man being be a woman.

Just now General Lingard was speaking with
kindling enthusiasm of a certain medical mission-
ary's fine work in West Africa. But Mrs. Pache's
face clouded distrustfully. She had suddenly re-
membered a scene in her school-room, her children,
Tom and his sister, together with two little friends,
sitting round Hew Lingard listening with breath-
less interest to the adventures of another mis-
sionary.

This divine had sent home as relics the clothes
he had worn when he had succeeded in converting
a whole village in Africa, and Mrs. Pache vividly
recalled the foolish verses which Lingard had de-
claimed to her young people with solemn face and
twinkling eyes — verses which cruelly misinterpreted
the missionary's intention.

Against her will the jingling lines ran in her
head —

"He preached — and did not bore them;
Their chief, a hoary man,

Replied, ' We are converted,
But, to turn to other topics,

Betrousered and beshirted,
You're outre in the Tropics.*

The preacher is convinced in turn
And dresses — like his flock . . ."

She remembered with irritation how the children
had insisted on making a copy of these absurd,

98 JANE OGLANDER

most unbecoming, rhymes, and how they had con-
tinually sung them to the beautiful old tune of
" She Wore a Wreath of Roses."

Mrs. Pache allowed her eyes to wander round
the table. How wizened and old Dick Wantele
was beginning to look! If poor Mr. Maule lasted
much longer, Wantele would be quite middle-aged
before he came into this fine property.

At one time — oh, long ago now, ten years
ago, when they first moved into the neighbourhood,
when Patty was only sixteen — Mrs, Pache had had
a vague hope that Dick Wantele and her Patty
might take a liking to one another. Oddly enough,
quite the opposite had happened ! Though thrown
into the conventional intimacy induced by pro-
pinquity, Patty had disliked Dick from the first;
she thought him priggish and affected, and he was
never more than coldly civil ; how odd now to think
that till the other day, they had all vaguely sup-
posed that he would end by marrying Miss Og-
lander. . . .

Mrs. Pache looked fondly at her daughter.
Patty didn't look as well as usual to-night — her
gown showed too much red arm. No doubt high
evening dresses were " coming in," for Mrs. Maule
was generally in advance of the fashion.

Patty was leaning forward trying to join in the
conversation of Mrs. Maule and of her father. Mrs.
Pache wished pettishly that Hew Lingard would
stop talking. She wanted to hear what Patty was

JANE OGLANDER 99

saying, and her wish became at last painted very
legibly on her face.

" The Barkings ? Oh, Mrs. Maule, they're such
nice people ! I do hope you will call on them " —
Patty's voice was raised in unusual animation.
And then her father's gruff voice broke in : " They
were out when my wife called on them; but Lady
Barking wrote a note asking Patty over to dinner.
They have four men staying in the house just now,
and only their married daughter to entertain them."

"Wasn't it lucky? And I enjoyed myself so
much ! " Everyone looked at the fortunate Patty.
Even Wantele felt a thrill of lazy interest. New-
comers in a country neighbourhood count for much,
and rightly so, to the old inhabitants.

" You remember what Halnaver House used to
look like in the days of poor dear old Lady Morell ?
Well, now it's quite different! You remember the
staircase, the famous old carved oak staircase ? "

Patty looked round the table eagerly, and
Wantele nodded assent.

" Well, they've taken the staircase away !
They're building a most delightful house in town,
right in the middle of London, and yet it's to be
exactly like a country house! So they're going to
put that oak staircase there, and they've installed
a lift at Halnaver instead! You press a button
and the lift takes you up to any floor — even right
to the very top of the house, where the garrets

100 JANE OGLANDER

have been turned into the most delightful bachelors'

rooms

(C

Oh Patty, you didn't tell me that," cried her
mother. "What an extraordinary thing! Then
where are the servants' quarters to be ? "

" I did tell you, mother — I know I did ! Where
the old stables used to be, of course ! They've built
a wing out there. It really has become a wonderful
house," said Patty happily. It was not often that
she was listened to with such respectful attention.
" By simply pressing a button as you lie in bed you
can lock and unlock the door of your room ! "

" The house must be all buttons " — observed
Wantele thoughtfully.

But Patty went on : " One of the men staying
there, a Major Biddell, said he had never stayed in
such a comfortable house! In fact he said — and
he seems to know everybody and go everywhere
— that it was as comfortable as the Paris Ritz
Hotel. Indeed, he went further, and declared that
not even the Ritz Hotel has a quarter of the clever
contrivances that Lady Barking has managed to
put into that poor old place ! "

" There can be no doubt at all," said Mrs. Pache,
" that the Barkings will prove a most delightful
addition to the neighbourhood." She looked in-
sistently at Athena Maule. " I do hope you are
going to call on them," she said.

Athena looked down. Mrs. Pache noticed with
some irritation that her hostess had extraordinarily

JANE OGLANDER loi

long and silken eyelashes. She almost wondered if
they could be real.

" I think not," Mrs. Maule at last answered, very
quietly.

Lingard was struck by the purity of her enun-
ciation. To Mrs. Maule her father's tongue was an
acquired language. As a child she had only spoken
modern Greek and French.

" I have seen the Barkings. Dick and I passed
them once when we were driving. And then last
week I found myself, for a few minutes, in a rail-
way carriage with Lady Barking and her daugh-
ter "

For a swift moment Athena, raising her eyes,
looked straight at General Lingard; then her vio-
let, dark fringed eyes dropped, and she added, " I
dare say they are excellent people."

" They're much — much more than that ! " cried
Patty, offended.

" But surely a little noisy ? I did not feel them
to be of our sort — I mean Richard's and mine,"
said Athena. " We are very quiet folk. No," she
threw her head back with the proud, graceful little
gesture most of those present were familiar with
— " I do not think it likely that we shall know the
Barkings."

" Oh, but, Mrs. Maule, do stretch a point " —
Patty's voice was full of earnest entreaty. " They
are so anxious to know you ! They have heard so
much about Rede Place!" She turned appealingly

102 JANE OGLANDER

to Wantele, but he looked, as those about him so
often saw him look, irritatingly indifferent, almost
bored.

Again Mrs. Maule smilingly shook her head.

"If they entertain as much as they are going to
do, I'm sure that friends of yours will often be
staying with them," Patty said defiantly.

" I do not think that very likely." Mrs. Maule
spoke with a touch of scorn in her voice, and Patty
Pache felt a wave of anger sweep through her. She
had promised her new friends that Mrs. Maule
should call at Halnaver House.

" Then you'll be rather surprised to hear that
even now there is a man there, that Major Biddell
— such an amusing, delightful man — who does
know you! Lady Barking wanted to send him
over to call. He seemed rather shy about it, but I
told him that you and Dick were always pleased to
see people, even when Mr. Maule did not feel up
to the exertion."

" I hope. Miss Patty, that you do not often take
my name in vain " — there was a touch of severity
in Dick Wantele's voice.

She blushed uncomfortably. " Oh, but it's
true!" she cried. "You and Mrs. Maule often
see people when Mr. Maule isn't well ! "

As the ladies walked out of the room, Athena
lingered a moment at the door. " Please bring
them all back to the drawing-room," she whispered

JANE OGLANDER 103

hurriedly to Wantele. " I wish to take General
Lingard in to Richard myself. Jane asked me to
do so in her last letter."

Wantele looked at her musingly. He felt cer-
tain Jane had done nothing of the kind. Athena
was fond of telling little useful lies. It was a mat-
ter of no importance.

Twenty minutes later Athena Maule and Hew
Lingard passed slowly across the square atrium,
which formed the centre of Rede Place.

Save for the white marble presences about them
they were alone, alone for the first time since that
brief moment of dual solitude in the railway car-
riage when Lingard had looked at her in cold, mute
apology for the scene he had provoked, and which
she had perforce witnessed.

The door of the room they were approaching
opened, and a man-servant came out with a cov-
ered dish in his hand.

" My husband is not quite ready for us," Athena
spoke a little breathlessly. She felt excited,
wrought up to a high pitch of emotion. For once
Chance, the fickle goddess, was on her side. " Shall
we wait here a few moments ? " She led him aside
into a deep recess.

Then, when the servant's footsteps had died
away, she turned her face up to him and Lingard
saw that her beautiful mouth was quivering with

104 JANE OGLANDER

feeling-, her eyes suffused with tears. So might
Andromeda have stood before Perseus when at
last unloosened from the cruel rock, the living, elo-
quent embodiment of passionate and innocent
shame.

" I want to thank you " she whispered.

" And — and — let me tell you this. Simply to
know that there is in this base, hateful world a
man who could do what you did for a woman un-
known to him, has altered my life, given me cour-
age to go on ! "

Mrs. Maule spoke the truth as far as the truth
was in her to speak. The incident in the railway
carriage had powerfully moved and excited her;
she had thought of little else even after Jane Og-
lander's letter announcing her engagement had
come to divert the current of her life. Nay, the
news conveyed in Jane's letter had brought with
it the explanation of what had happened. Athena
had leapt instinctively on the truth. Her unknown
friend — her noble defender — could have been no
other than General Lingard himself, on his way to
stay with the Paches.

It was Athena Maule, in her character of Jane
Oglander's dearest friend, who had made the
quixotic stranger's sword spring from its scabbard.
The knowledge had stung; but she was now en-
gaged in drawing the venom out of the sting. It
was surely her right to make this remarkable, this

JANE OGLANDER 105

famous man value and respect her for herself — not
simply for Jane's sake.

" I wish I could have killed the cur ! " Lingard's
voice was low, but his face had become fierce, tense
— the face of a fighter in the thick of battle.

Mrs. Maule was filled with a feeling of exquisite
satisfaction. Once more she found life worth
living. . . .

But General Lingard must not be allowed to for-
get Jane Oglander, Athena's friend — Athena's al-
most sister — the one woman who loved and ad-
mired her whole-heartedly, unquestioningly.

" Because of what you did the other day, and —
and because of Jane " — her voice shook with ex-
citement— " we must be friends, General Lingard."
She held out her hand, and Lingard, taking the
slender fingers in his, wrung Athena's hand, and
then with a sudden, rather awkward movement he
raised it to his lips.

" And now we must go on," she said quietly.
" Richard is waiting for us."

All emotion has a common denominator. The
last time Lingard had been as moved as he was
now was when he had parted from Jane Oglander
in the little sitting-room in that shabby house on
the south side of the Thames.

There was in Jane a certain austerity, a delicate
reserve of manner, which had made him feel that
she was a creature to be worshipped from afar,

I06 JANE OGLANDER

rather than a woman responsive to the man she
loves.

Each happy day of the week they had spent to-
gether practically alone in London, Lingard had
had to woo her afresh. But that, to a man of the
great soldier's temperament, had been no matter
for complaining. Her scruples and delicacies had
been met by him with infinite indulgence and ten-
derness.

Then on the last day, they had had their first
lovers' quarrel. He had entreated her to come
away with him, to accept, that is, the Maules' eager
invitation. Was he not going to the Paches' sim-
ply because they lived near Rede Place? But Jane
had promised to stay a week with a friend who was
ill — and she would not break her word. Lingard
had become suddenly angry, and in his anger had
turned cold.

For the first time in his knowledge of her, tears
had sprung to Jane's eyes. Where is the man who
does not early make the woman who loves him
weep? But these tears, or so it had seemed to him,
had unlocked a deep spring of poignant feeling in
her heart, or perchance had made it possible for her
to allow her lover to know that it was there.

He had moved away from her side, and then, in
a moment, had come from her a smothered cry, a
calling of her whole being for and to him. She
had thrown out her hands with the instinctive ges-

JANE OGLANDER 107

ture of a child who wishes to turn one who has been
unkind, kind. And when she was in his arms,
there had come to her that sense of spiritual and
physical response which had brought to him the
moment of exultant triumph he had thought would
never be his.

How strange that after that she should still have
held out, still have kept her word to the sick woman
who needed her! It was of Jane Oglander — of
Jane as she had been, all tenderness and fire, on that
day when they had parted, that Lingard thought
as he followed the woman whom he now called
friend into the room where Richard Maule sat
waiting for him.

The Paches' horseless carriage was proceeding
through the park at a pace which two of the five
sitting in it felt to be, if delightful, then rather
dangerous.

" Athena grows more beautiful every time I see
her," said Tom Pache suddenly. He and Hew Lin-
gard were sitting side by side opposite Mr. and
Mrs. Pache. Patty was wedged in between her
parents.

" I thought her gown very odd and unsuitable,"
said his mother sharply. " It isn't as if she had a
cold. I suppose she keeps her smart evening
gowns for her smart visits."

Yes, I thought it a pity she should hide any-

t(

io8 JANE OGLANDER

thing so good as her shoulders," answered her
son thoughtfully.

The man by his side made a restless movement,
and increased the distance between himself and his
young cousin.

" I told you the Barkings had heard all about
Athena Maule and Bayworth Kaye, mother," said
Patty eagerly.

" They probably know a great deal more than
there is to know," said her father gruffly. " People
talk of London as the home of scandal. I say I
never heard as much scandal in my life as since we
came to live in this neighbourhood."

" But, father, you must admit Bayworth Kaye
was quite cracked about Athena? I don't think
anyone could deny that who ever saw them together.
Why it made one feel quite uncomfortable ! "

Lingard felt as if he must get out, away from
these horrible people. When he had last seen the
Paches, Patty had been a pretty little girl, pert
perhaps, but not too much so in the eyes of the
young, indulgent soldier. He now judged her with
scant mercy.

" I don't think Athena could very well help what
happened," said Tom Pache judicially. He and his
father generally took the same side. " Bayworth
Kaye had the run of Rede Place since he was born.
And so — well, I don't suppose it took very long for
the mischief to be done — so far as he was con-
cerned, I mean."

JANE OGLANDER 109

" Oh, but, Tom, it was much more than that !
Athena could have helped it — of course she
could ! " Patty's voice rose. " Why, she got him
asked to a lot of houses where she was staying
herself, and they say in the village that she gave
him her key of the Garden Room. He used to
stay there fearfully late — long after Mr. Maule
and Dick Wantele had gone to bed ! "

" It was very hard on Mabel Digby," said Mrs.
Pache irrelevantly. She had a tepid liking for her
young neighbour.

" I don't think Mabel really cared for him,
mother." There was a streak of thin loyalty in
Patty Pache's nature. " You know she was almost
a child when Bayworth Kaye first went to India."

" She was seventeen," said Mrs. Pache, " very
nearly eighteen. And I know they wrote to one
another by every mail — his mother told me so."

" It's rather hard on the women of the neigh-
bourhood, when one comes to think of it," said
Tom Pache, smiling in the darkness. " Athena's a
formidable rival." His mother and his sister felt
that he spoke more truly than he knew.

" There's only one person," cried Patty sud-
denly, " who's never been in love with Athena !
And it's so odd, because he's always with her — I
mean Dick Wantele."

" My dear child, how you let your tongue run
on," said her mother reprovingly. " You seem to
forget that Athena is a married woman!" In an-

no JANE OGLANDER

other, a more natural, tone she added : " And then
Dick Wantele, as you know perfectly well, has al-
ways been attached to "

Her husband gave her a violent shove and she
did not jfinish her sentence. They had all forgot-
ten the large, silent, alien presence of Hew Lingard.

CHAPTER VII

" Who ever rigged fair ships to lie in harbours ?. "

Dick Wantele was driving back to Rede Place
from Selford Junction. He had been away for
four days, and now he was very glad to be home
again. He very seldom left Rede Place unless
Jane Oglander was there, — in fact, this was the
first time he had gone away leaving Richard Maule
and Athena alone together since they had returned,
eight years before, from what had proved so disas-
trous a winter in Italy.

Wantele had grown accustomed to his servitude,
but there came moments when the strain of the
life he was leading became intolerable, and then,
suddenly, he would go away for a few days, some-
times to an old friend, sometimes alone.

This time both Richard and Athena had pressed
him to keep an engagement he had made some
weeks before. He had known Richard's motive —
Jane was to arrive during his absence, and Richard
had wished him to be spared certain difficult mo-
ments— those of bidding Jane welcome, of wishing
Jane joy.

As to Athena's motive in wishing him away, he

III

112 JANE OGLANDER

had been less clear. None the less had he been
sure that she had a motive.

And so he had gone, this time to an old college
friend, and he had enjoyed the desultory talking,
the indifferent shooting, and the lazy reading, he
had managed to cram into his short holiday. He
had now come back, as he always did, after a thor-
ough change of scene and of atmosphere, feeling, if
not a new man, then patched in places, and once
more facing life in his usual philosophical, slightly
satirical, spirit.

Now their old coachman was telling him all
sorts of bits of news that amused him ; for a great
deal can happen, in fact a great deal always does
happen, during four days, in a country neighbour-
hood.

The most exciting bit of news was that of an ac-
cident to the Paches' new motor. The coachman
told the tale with natural relish.

" The hind wheel just sank down in that deep
rut by that there Windy Common corner — you
know, sir. The machine went over as gentle as a
babby! But they had a rare job getting the queer
thing righted again, so I'm told, sir."

" I hope no one was hurt, Jupp ? "

" Miss Patty — she as caused all the mischief —
escaped scot free. But Squire Pache, so they say,
was shook something dreadful ! And as for Mrs.
Pache, why, her arm was quite twisted. There's
some people as says she'll never get it right again."

JANE OGLANDER 113

"Oh, but that's a dreadful thing!" exclaimed
Wantele, rousing himself. He felt suddenly
ashamed of his long and deep-seated dislike of
Mrs. Pache and of poor Patty. He and Jane Og-
lander might drive over there this afternoon to en-
quire how they all were.

Then the young man's fair, lined face became
overcast. He reminded himself bitterly that Jane's
time and thoughts now belonged to someone else.
Lingard would naturally spend every moment he
could escape from the afflicted Paches at Rede
Place ; and when he, her lover, was not there, Jane
would be closeted with Athena, or occupied in
amusing Richard.

" They do say, sir, that Mrs. Pache is so bad that
she says she'll never ride in that dratted motor-car
again."

" That's bad, Jupp, very bad ! Til go over and

enquire to-morrow morning By the way,

when did the accident happen?"

" The very day after you left, sir."

They were now within the boundaries of Rede
Place. The rather fantastic foreign-looking
house lay before them, its whiteness softened by the
ruddy autumn tints of the trees.

Wantele, for the first time in his life, felt a sud-
den dislike of the place and of its artificial beauty
sweep over him. His existence there had only been
rendered tolerable, kept warmly human, by the
coming and going of Jane Oglander.

114 JANE OGLANDER

No doubt she would now be in the hall, waiting
for him alone — she always did instinctively the
kind, the tactful thing. But for the moment he had
no wish to see her. There ran a tremor through
him, and the young horse he was driving swerved
violently. He flicked the horse sharply on the
under side. How — how stupid, how absurd of him
to feel like this!

While he had been away he had tried to forget
Jane, but whenever he was alone, and during the
long wakeful hours of each night, his thoughts had
enwrapped her more closely than ever. It seemed
so strange that she would no longer be free to
console him, to chide him, to laugh at and with
him.

From to-day everything in their relationship
would be changed. Even now, Jane was probably
with her lover. Wantele averted his thoughts
quickly from the vision his morbid imagination
forced upon him. Lingard looked the man to be a
masterful, a happy wooer.

In two or three days the famous soldier would
be an inmate of Rede Place — his visit had been
arranged just before Wantele had gone away.
Richard Maule had himself suggested it. In fact,
as Athena had observed on the day following their
first acquaintance with Lingard, it seemed absurd
that such a man should be staying with the
Paches. . . .

They were now close to the house, and the

JANE OGLANDER 115

thought of an immediate meeting with Jane be-
came suddenly intolerable to Wantele.

" I'll get out here," he said hurriedly, throwing
the reins to Jupp. " You can take my bag round
while I walk up through the arboretum and let
myself in by the Garden Room."

In '51, when crystal houses, as they were called
for a brief span, became a fashion, Theophilus Joy
had built a large conservatory on to one end of his
country house. Ugly though it was, the Garden
Room, as it soon became called, had greatly added
to the amenities of Rede Place. Fragrant and cool
in summer, warm and scented in winter, it was con-
sidered a delightful novelty by the old banker's
guests.

Those had been the days when the boy Richard,
moving among the amusing and amused worldlings
who formed his grandfather's large circle of ac-
quaintances, had not known that there were such
things as disease, tragedy, and passion in the world.
Let us eat and be merry — so much of his grand-
father's philosophy young Richard had imbibed,
and no more.

The Garden Room was still a delightful place,
with its marble fountain brought forty years before
from Naples, its flowering creepers, and the rare
plants which still made it the pride of the head-
gardener of Rede Place.

Yet it was but little used. Now and again on a
rainy day Richard Maule would drag his feeble

Ii6 JANE OGLANDER

limbs along the warm moist stone pavement for the
little gentle exercise recommended by his old friend
and neighbour, Dr. Mannet. But he never did this
when his wife was at Rede Place, for Athena's
boudoir, the sitting-room which she had herself
chosen and arranged to her fancy soon after her
first coming to England, was the end room on the
ground floor of the house, and so next to the Gar-
den Room.

Some years before, when a neighbouring country
house had been burgled, new locks had been fitted
to the various doors giving access to the gardens
and the park, and now the door of the Garden
Room was always kept locked. There were three
keys — Wantele and Athena each had one, and the
head-gardener kept the third.

As Wantele passed through into the house, he
heard the murmur of voices in the boudoir;
Athena's clear voice dominated by a man's deep,
vibrating tones.

Yes, instinct born of jealous pain had served him
truly — Lingard was now at Rede Place. They
were there — Jane and Lingard — behind that
door. . . .

He hurried the quicker to escape from the sound
of voices. The broad corridor which had been a
concession to English taste was very airless, for in
deference to Richard Maule's state of health the
house was always over-heated. Athena, too, had a

JANE OGLANDER 117

dread, a hatred of cold; in all essentials she was a
southerner.

Dick Wantele loved wild weather and chill winter.
He hated the languor and heat in which he was con-
demned to spend so much of each day.

At last, when in the hall, Wantele stayed his steps.

During his brief absences from home letters were
not sent on to him, for he was always glad to escape
for a few days from his usual correspondence, let-
ters connected with his cousin's affairs and with the
estate, important to the senders if not to the recipi-
ent. But there was always a moment of reckoning
when he came back, and now he knew that there
must be many little matters waiting to be dealt with.
He might as well find out what there was before
going on to see Richard in the Greek Room.

Then, while walking across to the marble table
where his letters were always placed, the young
man was astonished to see on the floor a large half-
filled postman's sack. The label on it bore General
Lingard's name; the Paches' address had been
crossed out, and that of Rede Place substituted.

Really, it was rather cool of Lingard to have his
correspondence sent on in this fashion ! It was also
a proof that he must be spending the major part
of each day at Rede Place. Heavens ! what a corre-
spondence the man must have. That was a privi-
lege of fame he could well spare his successful rival.

He turned to his own letters. There were many

ii8 JANE OGLANDER

more than usual. And then, as he tore the envelopes
rapidly open, it seemed to him that most of his ac-
quaintances within a certain radius had written to
him during the four days he had been away !

Each letter he opened — and this both diverted and
angered Wantele — ran on the same theme and con-
tained the same request.

" Dear Mr. Wantele — I am writing to you be-
cause Mrs. Maule may be away. We hear that Gen-
eral Lingard is staying with you for a few days. It
would give us such pleasure if you would bring him
over, either to lunch or dinner, whichever suits you
best. It will be an honour as well as a pleasure to
make General Lingard's acquaintance. If you will
send me a line by return, we could manage to make
any day convenient that would suit you and Gen-
eral Lingard."

Old friends, new friends, people whom he had
never met and whom he had no intention of meet-
ing— were each and all in full cry.

The last letter he opened was in Tom Pache's
handwriting. The young man had written at his
mother's dictation, and the note contained a long
list of the people whom she had promised to invite,
or had actually invited, to meet her famous relative.

There was a postscript from Tom himself.

" It is most awfully good of Mr. and Mrs. Maule
to have asked Hew Lingard over a few days before
they expected him. As you see, mother's plans are

JANE OGLANDER 119

all upset, and she is dreadfully worried about it all."

Then Lingard was already here? Wantele won-
dered how he was to answer those absurd letters — '
how to put off these people. He made a point of
being on good, if not on very cordial, terms with his
neighbours. He and Richard both acknowledged a
certain duty to the neighbourhood. In spite of Mr.
Maule's physical condition, Rede Place did its fair
share of quiet, very quiet, entertaining, generally
when Mrs. Maule happened to be away and when
Jane Oglander happened to be there.

Athena had long ago decided that her neighbours
were the dullest set of people to be found in an Eng-
lish countryside, and that the receiving of them at
lunch or dinner bored her to tears.

Well ! There was nothing for it now but to go
and consult Athena as to what should be done.
After all, she was the mistress of Rede Place, and
Richard was in no state to be asked tiresome ques-
tions or required to make tiresome decisions.

Holding the letters which had so perturbed him in
his hand, Wantele slowly retraced his steps. He
might as well meet Jane now as at any other time
or in any other way.

Wantele knocked at the door of the boudoir.
Since her arrival at Rede Place, eight years ago, he
had remained on very formal terms with his cousin's
wife.

There fell a sudden silence on the occupants of

120 JANE OGLANDER

the room, and then, after a perceptible pause, Athena
called out in her clear, exquisitely modulated voice,
"Come in. Who is it?"

Dick Wantele slowly turned the handle of the
door, and in a flash he saw that Jane Oglander was
not there.

There were but two people in the room. One
was Mrs. Maule ; she was sitting on a low seat close
to the fire, her lovely head bent over an embroidery
frame; the other, General Lingard, was standing,
looking down at her with an eager, absorbed expres-
sion on his face.

Athena was wearing a white gown, fashioned
rather like a monk's habit. It left the slender,
rounded column of her neck bare.

The intruder, feeling at once relieved and disap-
pointed, stared doubtfully at the famous soldier.
General Lingard looked a younger man than he had
done the other night — younger and somehow differ-
ent, far, far more vividly alive. Perhaps it was his
clothes ; rough morning clothes are more becoming
to the type of man Wantele now took Lingard to be
than is evening dress. Both he and Mrs. Maule
looked most happily and intimately at ease.

Wantele felt a pang of angry irritation. How like
Athena to take General Lingard away from Jane!
And to keep him with her while her friend was
doubtless engaged in doing what should have been
her own job — that is, in looking after Richard.

But many years had gone by since Athena had

JANE OGLANDER 121

even made a pretence of looking after Richard.
Had Wantele been just, which he was at this mo-
ment incapable of being, he would have admitted to
himself that Richard would have given Athena
small thanks for her company.

" Dick ! Is that you ? Why, I thought you
weren't coming back till the afternoon ! Have you
seen Richard? "

Athena had a subtle way with her of making a
man feel an intruder.

But Wantele held his ground.

" I always meant to come back in the morning,"
he said shortly. " No, I haven't seen Richard."

" I'm glad you've come, for Richard's worried
about some tiresome letters he's had this morning."

" Is Jane with Richard? " he asked abruptly.

It was odd of General Lingard not to have come
forward and shaken hands. The soldier had just
nodded — that was all. He also seemed to feel the
young man's presence an intrusion.

" Jane hasn't come. Didn't you know ? I thought
she would have written to you. She is staying a
week longer with that tiresome friend of hers.
There's to be an operation now, it seems, and the
woman's implored Jane to stay with her till it's
over. Oh, but ever so many things have hap-
pened "

Athena put aside her work and got up. " The
poor Paches have had a motor accident, and so we
— I mean Richard and I — asked General Lingard to

122 JANE OGLANDER

come here at once instead of waiting till the end of
the week. I'm afraid he's had rather a dull time,
though the Paches have very kindly allowed us to
use their motor car — the car wasn't hurt in any
way — " she turned to her guest and smiled. " But
now that you're back, Dick, it will be all right."

She sat down again, and again bent over the em-
broidery frame. Each of the men looking down at
her felt himself dismissed.

Together they left the room, and Dick Wantele
could have laughed aloud to see General Lingard's
air of discomfiture.

He thought he could reconstitute the events of the
last three days. No doubt Richard had insisted on
Jane's lover being asked over to stay, and Athena,
as was her way, had resented the trouble of enter-
taining Richard's guest.

Mrs. Maule had no liking for a man on half terms.
With her it must be all or nothing — too often it was
all that she received ; seldom, as in this case — noth-
ing. Wantele felt a malicious pleasure in the knowl-
edge that for once Athena's spells would be power-
less, that in this unique instance there was stretched
before her a gateless barrier. Hew Lingard was the
lover of her friend, and Athena, so Wantele ac-
knowledged, loved Jane Oglander with whatever
truth was in her.

Such were his disconnected thoughts as he walked
silently by the other's side. Yes, Lingard seemed
strangely unlike the man who had dined there a week

JANE OGLANDER 123

ago. Dick Wantele possessed an almost feminine
power of observation, of intuition. He would have
been a happier man had he lacked it.

" I must go and find my cousin," he said at last.
" I haven't seen him yet. But he won't keep me
long."

" Please don't trouble about me. I've a lot of
letters to write. Mrs. Maule has been good enough
to give me a sitting-room."

Lingard spoke with a touch of rather curt impa-
tience. He had no wish to be entertained by this
odd, idle young man. Mr. Maule's heir did not at-
tract him; Dick Wantele took too much upon him-
self.

Lingard was already on excellent terms with his
host — his poor, feeble, afflicted host. As for Mrs.
Maule — he thought of her as Athena, had she not
already asked him to call her Athena? — she was, if
only as Jane Oglander's intimate friend, already set
apart on a pedestal. And then Athena had said a
Word — only a word — of the painful position she oc-
cupied in her husband's house, that of an occasional
and not very welcome guest. It had made Lingard
seethe with unspoken, but the more deeply felt, in-
dignation.

There is something moving, to a generous mascu-
line mind something very pathetic, in the sight of
a beautiful woman hardly used by fate, Lingard
already suspected that in this case Dick Wantele
played the ugly part of fate. True, Jane seemed very

124 JANE OGLANDER

fond of the young man, and he had been good to
her in the terrible affair of her brother ; but the taste
of women in the matter of men is not always to be
trusted.

General Lingard, in spite of the qualities which
made him a successful leader of fighting men, had
not troubled himself, indeed he had not had the time,
to probe or question certain accepted axioms.

As the two came into the hall, Lingard stepped
aside and took up the heavy mail bag.

"Please don't do that! It must be awfully
heavy ! " The host in Dick Wantele was roused.
It ought to have been put in your sitting-room long

ago.

Lingard gave a short, not very pleasant, laugh.
He was very strong and Wantele looked delicate,
languid — not the sort of man Lingard liked or was
accustomed to meet. It was a pity Wantele had
come back so soon. The three days alone with
Richard Maule — and with Athena — had been very
pleasant. . . .

Dick went on, with his quick, light steps, into the
Greek Room. He had again shouldered his burden,
and it was pressing on him even more hardly than
usual. If only Jane had been there ! He now longed
for her presence as a man longs for a lamp in dark
subterranean places from which he knows no issue.

With a shock of surprise he realised that the let-
ters he had meant to show Athena were still in his

JANE OGLANDER 125

hand, and that he had said nothing to her of their
contents.

He found Richard Maule sitting, as he always did
sit in any but the hottest summer weather, crouched
up in front of the fire; but when Dick came in Mr.
Maule smiled as a man smiles at his own son, and
the other saw that his cousin looked more vigorous,
more alive, than usual. There was even a little
colour in his white drawn cheeks.

It was a long time since they had had any visitor,
any man that is, staying at Rede Place ; and Wantele
now asked himself whether they were wise in lead-
ing so quiet a life. Richard was evidently enjoying
General Lingard's visit.

" He's a good fellow, Dick. He grows on one

with acquaintance. I don't know but that Jane "

He stopped abruptly. The thought in his mind to
which he had all but given utterance was that Jane
Oglander, after all, had done well for herself.
** He's not a bit spoilt. And yet there must be a lot
of people running after him! Just look at these
letters ! We shall have to do something about them.
Eh? Some of these people will have to be asked
here to meet him, I suppose ? "

And Wantele, again with mingled annoyance and
amusement, saw another pile of notes — far smaller,
it was true, than his own — lying on the reading-
desk which was always close to his cousin's hand.
The duke has written to me. They want to have

(t

126 JANE OGLANDER

him over there for a couple of nights — if we can
spare him."

Mr. Maule smiled, not unkindly.

" It's evident we can't hope to keep the hero all
to ourselves. It's lucky Jane Oglander isn't here!
I thought it such a pity yesterday, but now I'm glad.
We may be able to ask a few people over before she
arrives — when she's here, Lingard won't want a
crowd about. We might begin with the Sumners
— you see they ask themselves, it's very good of
them, for to-morrow ! " he laughed outright, a thin,
satirical and yet again not an unkindly laugh.

Dick had never seen his cousin so animated, so
interested, in a word, so amused, for years. He
was rather surprised.

" It'll be an awful bore," he said slowly, " and
Richard — are you sure that you wish it? I think
I could manage to put off most of these people —
I mean without giving offence."

" No, no, Dick ! I know it'll give you a certain
amount of trouble " — the older man looked atten-
tively at the younger — " but I've felt lately that we
didn't see enough people. I don't see why my state
and Athena's selfishness " — he uttered the word
very deliberately — " should force you to live such
an unnatural life as you've now been leading for

so long " He waited a moment and then said,

more lightly, " I'm afraid that we both, you and I,
have grown to believe that Jane Oglander's the
only young woman in the world."

JANE OGLANDER 127

Wantele gave him a swift look.

" She's the only woman in the world for me,"
he muttered. " Lingard may be a good fellow,
Richard, but I wish — I would give a good deal to
know what Jane sees in him." He also was trying
to speak lightly.

" Ah, one always feels that ! " Richard Maule
lay back in his chair. The short discussion had
tired him. " Then will you see about it all,
Dick?"

" Yes," cried Wantele hastily, " of course I will !
I agree that we've been too much shut up."

He went back to Athena, and this time she wel-
comed him graciously. She also had received let-
ters asking for a peep of their hero.

Wantele looked at his cousin's wife with reluc-
tant admiration. He had not seen her looking as
animated, as radiant as — as seductive as she looked
now for a very long time.

" Don't you see the change in Richard ? " she
asked eagerly. " He's become quite another crea-
ture since General Lingard came here. I've always
thought you kept Richard far too much shut up,
Dick "

" You never said so before," He said sharply.

She shrugged her shoulders. " It was none of
my business."

Her face clouded, and with hasty accord they
changed the subject, and with exactly the same
words : " Who had we better ask first ? " And

128 JANE OGLANDER

then they stopped, and laughed. For the moment
these two, Richard Maule's heir and Richard
Maule's wife, were on more cordial terms than they
had been for years.

" You have now got all the letters," she cried
gaily — " Richard's, mine, and yours ! Look them
over, and make out a list — I'm sure you're much
better at that sort of thing than I am ! "

He left her to carry out her behest.

If there was anything like real entertaining to be
done at Rede Place, all kinds of arrangements
would have to be made, and the making of them
must fall on Dick Wantele. Athena had told the
truth when she had described herself to General
Lingard as only a guest in her husband's house.
But she had omitted to add that it was an arrange-
ment which had hitherto suited her perfectly, and
the only one she would have tolerated.

CHAPTER VIII
" To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance."

During the days that followed Dick Wantele's re-
turn home, it seemed to him as though a magic
wand had been waved over Rede Place.

Mrs. Maule had no wish to keep her famous
guest to herself. Even to the two men who
watched her with a rather cruel scrutiny so much
was clear. She seemed, indeed, to delight in exhib-
iting General Lingard to the neighbourhood, and
the neighbourhood were only too willing to fall in
with her pleasure.

The gatherings were small, when one came to
think of it — eight or ten people to lunch, ten or
twelve people to dinner.

How accustomed Dick grew to the formula
which had at first so much surprised him ! " Dear
Mrs. Maule," or " Dear Mr. Wantele " (as the case
might be) " We hear that General Lingard is stay-
ing at Rede Place. It would give us very great
pleasure if you would bring him over to lunch or
dinner, whichever suits you best."

But there Athena wisely drew the line. No, she
would not take General Lingard, or allow him to
be taken, *here and there and everywhere! He

129

130 JANE OGLANDER

was at Rede Place for rest. But the agreeable
people, the people who would amuse and interest
him, and the people who if dull had, as it were, a
right to meet the lion, were asked in their turn to
come.

They would arrive about half-past one, filling the
beautiful rooms generally so empty of human
sounds, with a pleasant bustle of talk and laughter.
They would lunch in the tapestry dining-room,
none too young or too old to enjoy the far-famed
skill of Richard Maule's Corsican chef; and then,
according to their fancy, or according to Athena's
whim, they would wander about the house, looking
at the pictures and fingering the curios which en-
joyed an almost legendary reputation; or better still
stream out into the formal gardens, now brilliant
with strangely tinted autumn flowers, and fantasti-
cally peopled with the marble fauns and stone dry-
ads brought from Italy and Greece by old Theoph-
ilus Joy.

Finally they would go away, thanking Athena
earnestly for the delightful time they had had and
telling themselves and each other that Mrs. Maule
was, after all, a very charming person, and that
the stories of her heartless conduct to her husband,
of her long absences from home, of her — well — her
flirtations, were probably all quite untrue!

The dinner-parties were slightly more formal af-
fairs, but they also, thanks to all those concerned —

JANE OGLANDER 131

and especially to Mrs. Maule — were quite success-
ful, and very pleasant.

For the first time for many years, Athena Maule
and Dick Wantele were thrown into a curious kind
of intimacy. They had constantly to consult each
other, and to confer together. " You see, I want
to get all this sort of thing over before Jane ar-
rives ! " she once exclaimed ; and Wantele had
looked at her musingly. After all, perhaps she
spoke the truth.

Strange ten days! No wonder that Dick Wan-
tele was surprised, almost bewildered, by Athena
in her new role — by Athena, that is, in the part of
good-humoured, graceful, tactful hostess of Rede
Place. Hitherto his imagination had never fol-
lowed his cousin's wife on the long visits she paid
to other people's houses. Now, with astonishment
he realised that she must be, even apart from her
singular beauty, and what had become to him her
perverse, and most dangerous charm, an agree-
able guest.

She thought of everything, she thought of every-
body, even of Mabel Digby. Mabel Digby was
allowed to have her full share in the festivities, in
the glorifications — for they were nothing else — of
General Lingard, and that although Athena had
never liked Mabel, and thought her a tiresome,
priggish girl. Yes, all that fell to Mrs. Maule's
share was managed with infinite tact, good hu-
mour, and good taste. The guests were not al-

132 JANE OGLANDER

lowed to bother Richard, or to interfere with Rich-
ard's comfort and love of ease. Occasionally one
or two old friends, who perchance had hardly seen
him for years, would be taken into the Greek Room
to talk to him for ten minutes. . . .

Not the least strange thing was that General
Lingard apparently enjoyed it all. Sometimes,
nay often, he said a deprecating word or two to
one or other of his hosts — a word or two implying
that he saw the humour of the whole thing. But
within the next hour he would be accepting rather
shame-facedly the flattery lavished on him by some
pretty, silly girl, or, what was more to his credit,
listening patiently to an older woman's account of
a son who was in " the service," and for whom the
great man she was speaking to might " do some-
thing."

To the amateur soldier who in any capacity
forms part of an army on active service, the most
extraordinary thing, that which at once strikes his
imagination and goes on doing so repeatedly until
the campaign is over, is the fact that for most of
the weary time, he and his fellows are fighting an
invisible enemy.

During each of these long, unreal days when he
had scarce a moment to himself, for it fell to his
share to see that everything ran smoothly, Dick
Wantele found himself engaged in close watchful
combat with an invisible foe. He would have given

JANE OGLANDER I33

much to be convinced that he was pursuing a phan-
tom bred of his own evil imagination, and some-
times he was so convinced.

Then the mists with which he was surrounded
would part, suddenly, and the fearsome thing was
there, before him.

Mabel Digby was the first lantern which lighted
up the dark recess into which Wantele's mind was
already glancing with such foreboding.

It was the third day after his return home, and
with the aid of telegrams and messengers a con-
siderable party had been gathered together for
what had been a really amusing and successful
luncheon party. When the last guest — with the
exception of Mabel, who hardly counted as a guest
— had been duly sped, Mrs. Maule and General
Lingard slipped away together; and Wantele of-
fered to walk back with Mabel to the Small Farm.

They were already some way from the house,
when she told him a piece of news that was weigh-
ing very heavily on her heart.

" Have you been told," she asked, " about Bay-
worth Kaye? He's at Aden, it seems, and seri-
ously ill. They think it's typhoid. His parents
only heard yesterday. They're awfully worried
about him. Mrs. Kaye can't make up her mind
whether she ought to go out to him or not."

And then, as he turned to her, startled, genuinely
sorry, he saw a look on her young face he had
never seen there before; it was a terrible expres-

134 JANE OGLANDER

sion — one of aversion and of passionate contempt.

Mrs. Maule and General Lingard were walking
together, pacing slowly side by side. Though a
turn of the path brought them very near, Lingard
was so absorbed in what Athena was saying that
he did not see Wantele and Miss Digby. But
Athena saw them, and with a quick, skilful move-
ment she guided her own and her companion's
steps in a direction that made it impossible for the
four to meet.

Mabel Digby remained silent for some moments,
and then she turned abruptly to Wantele.

"Why isn't Jane Oglander here?" she asked.
" I thought you expected her last week. Her
friend must be a very selfish woman ! "

" I don't think Jane would care for the sort of
thing we had to-day," Wantele said reflectively.
Why had Mabel looked at Athena with so strange
— so — so contemptuous a look ? " Still, she'll have
to get used to seeing him lionized."

" Write and ask her to come as soon as she
can, Dick. It's — it's stupid of her to stay away
like that!"

Wantele glanced round at the speaker; and then,
to his concern and surprise, he saw that her face
was flushed, her brown eyes soft with tears. " I
was thinking of Bayworth," she faltered. " He
looked so dreadfully unhappy when he went away,
Dick, and — and I can't help knowing why."

JANE OGLANDER 135

The Hours and the days wore themselves away
quickly — all too quickly for Athena Maule and
Hew Lingard, slowly and full of acute discomfort
and suspicion for Dick Wantele.

Occasionally the young man tried to tell himself
that perhaps the real reason of his discontent was
their guest's attitude to himself. It was clear that
the famous soldier did not like the younger of his
hosts, in fact he hardly made any attempt to con-
ceal his prejudice, and the two men, though of
course forced into a kind of intimacy, saw as little
as they could of one another.

It was with his hostess that General Lingard
spent every odd moment, — every moment that he
could spare from the work on which he was en-
gaged— a book he had promised to write by a cer-
tain date. And after a very few days Wantele dis-
covered with amusement, discomfiture, amazement
that Lingard was actually consulting Athena about
his book, reading her passages as he wrote them.

And then Wantele told himself with shame that
the doing of this was not so foolish or so strange,
after all, — for the book was to appeal to the gen-
eral public, and Mrs. Maule might reasonably be
supposed to belong to that public.

But not even Wantele in his darkest, most sus-
picious moods suspected the depth, the reality of
Lingard's peril.

The exciting, exhilarating experiences which

136 JANE OGLANDER

were now befalling him produced on one who was
essentially a man of action, not a philosopher and
thinker, an extraordinary mental and even physi-
cal effect.

The absurd homage, the crude flattery, to which
Lingard found himself subjected by the young and
the foolish among Mrs. Maule's guests annoyed
rather than pleased him, but he would be moved to
the soul when a word said — often an awkward, shy
word — showed how great was the place he had con-
quered in the estimation of those of his fellow-
countrymen and countrywomen who were jealous
for their country's glory.

He had instinctively discounted the newspaper
fame showered so freely upon him on his immedi-
ate arrival in England; he was humorously con-
scious that he owed it in a great measure to the ab-
sence of any other competing lion of the moment.

True, he had at once received a number of invi-
tations from hostesses of the kind who make it
their business to secure the latest celebrity, and he
had grudged the time he spent over the writing of
coldly civil refusals, Lingard had also been
plagued with innumerable letters from people who
vaguely hoped he would be able to do something
which would contribute in some way to their ad-
vancement, or that of their near relations. And
then there had come absurd and painful communi-
cations from lunatics, begging-letter writers, and
autograph hunters.

JANE OGLANDER 137

Not till he came to Rede Place did the position
he had won become really clear to him, though
pride and good breeding made him appear to take
his triumph lightly.

And Athena Maule shared it all with him ! The
very letters he received were, at her entreaty, shown
to, and discussed with her in a way which gave
each of them a special value and importance.
Athena was much more impressed with his tri-
umph than he allowed himself to be ; and when
alone with her, — and they were very often alone
together, — Lingard unconsciously moved in a de-
lightful atmosphere of subtle, wordless sympathy
and flattery.

Jane Oglander, absorbed in the physical crisis
through which was passing the friend with whom
she was staying, became even to her lover infinitely
remote; though Lingard liked to remind himself,
now and again, that it was Jane who had given him
his new, enchanting comrade and friend.

Athena Maule appeared to Hew Lingard the
most selfless human being he had ever known.
And yet, each day, when the guests, the people she
so kindly asked to meet him, were all gone, and
when he and she were enjoying an hour of rest and
solitude together, to which he had now learnt to
look forward so eagerly, she was always ready to
talk to him about herself. Soon there was no sub-
ject of conversation between them which held for
Lingard so potent, so entrancing a lure.

138 JANE OGLANDER

There came a day when the soldier, more moved,
more secretly excited, more exhilarated than usual,
was able to express to her something of what he
felt.

Among those who had been bidden to Rede Place
was an old man, a Crimean veteran who in his day
had enjoyed, though of course on a smaller scale,
much the same kind of experience Hew Lingard
was now passing through. The two had been al-
lowed, by tacit consent, to have a considerable
amount of talk together, and Lingard had been
greatly touched and moved by the other's words
of understanding praise, and appreciation, of the
difficult, perilous task he had accomplished.

Sure of her sympathy and understanding, he
told Mrs. Maule all that the veteran's words had
meant to him, and at once, as was her wont, —
though he remained quite unconscious of it, — she
brought the subject round to the personal, the in-
timate standpoint : " You don't know," she said
softly, " what it means to me to know that you met
that dear old man here."

And that had given him his chance of saying
what he felt each day more and more, namely that
he owed everything, everything to her, — to her
thoughtful kindness and to her instinctive knowl-
edge of what would at once please and move him.

How amazed he would have been could he have
seen into Athena's heart! She had thought it

JANE OGLANDER 139

rather absurd that Lingard should care so much for
praise uttered by such an unimportant person as
the poor, broken old officer who led a quiet and
rather eccentric existence on the edge of a lonely
common some way from Rede Place. He had orig-
inally come into the neighbourhood in order to be
near Mabel Digby's father, and Athena had never
thought him to be of the slightest consequence, —
indeed, she had only assented to his being asked to
meet General Lingard because Mabel had earnestly
begged that he might be.

Conscious hypocrisy is far rarer than the world
is apt to believe, and only succeeds in its designs
with those who are mentally ill-equipped. The
women who work the most mischief in civilized
communities are supreme egoists, and an egoist is
never a conscious hypocrite.

When dealing with a being of the opposite sex
to her own, Athena Maule always held up to his en-
raptured gaze a magic mirror in which was re-
flected the beautiful and pathetic figure of a deeply
injured woman : one who had made a gallant fight
against the harsh fate which had married her to
such a man as Richard Maule, and which placed
her in subjection to so cruel and contemptible a
creature as was Richard's kinsman and heir, Dick
Wantele.

Mrs. Maule was also affected, and very power-

I40 JANE OGLANDER

fully so, by all that took place during the ten days
which elapsed between Dick Wantele's return and
Jane Oglander's arrival.

The people among- whom she habitually lived
knew nothing of such men as Hew Lingard. Rich
and idle always, vicious or virtuous according to
their temperament and the measure of their temp-
tations, they had no use for the great workers of
the world, unless indeed those workers' struggles,
victories, and defeats lay in the world of finance.

Thus it was that General Lingard presented to
Athena Maule the attractive human bait of some-
thing new, untasted, unrehearsed.

She did not mean to act ill by Jane Oglander;
on the contrary, as the days went on, Lingard's be-
trothed became in Mrs. Maule's imagination a
cruel, almost a pitiless rival. She could not help
contrasting her own life with that which was now
opening before her friend. Jane was about to be
lifted, through no merit, no effort of her own, into
a delightful, a passionately interesting and shifting
atmosphere, that which surrounds a commanding
officer's wife in one of the great military centres
of the Empire at home or abroad.

Athena longed to try her power — the power she
knew to be almost limitless in one direction — on the
type of man with whom Jane would henceforth be
surrounded, a type of whose very presence Jane, she
knew well, would scarcely be aware ! It was strange,
it — it was horrible to think that Jane would be lead-

JANE OGLANDER 141

ing a delightful and stimulating existence while she,
Athena, would be going the same dreary round
among the same selfish, stupid people of whom she
had grown so tired.

During those days when she was acting, for the
first time, as the real mistress of Rede Place, and as
hostess to a man whom all the world wished at that
moment to meet and entertain, Mrs. Maule told her-
self again and again, with deep, wordless anger, that
life was indeed using her hardly.

How ironic the stroke of fate which made a Jane
Oglander be chosen by a Hew Lingard ! There was
one consolation — but Athena was in no mood for
finding consolation — in the thought that both Gen-
eral Lingard and Jane would ever regard Mrs.
Richard Maule as the most welcome, the most hon-
oured of their guests. Thanks to that fact, she
would enter and doubtless achieve the social con-
quest of that official section of the English world
into which her incursions had been few and seldom
repeated.

CHAPTER IX

" Ferdinand. — I have this night digged up a mandrake.
Cardinal. — Say you?
Ferdinand. — And I am grown mad with it."

And now the evening of the last of their delightful
days had come, — so at least Athena Maule thought
of it, for Jane Oglander was arriving the next morn-
ing.

Wantele and Athena had had a sharp difference
that afternoon. She wished that the gay, the amus-
ing doings of the last few days should continue, and
she had made out a further list — a short list, so she
assured herself, — of people who had been forgotten,
and who might as well be asked now. To her
anger and surprise, Dick Wantele had refused her
reasonable request backing up his refusal with the
authority of her husband, of Richard himself.

" Richard thinks we've had enough of it, and that
Jane would so hate it all," he said, having reminded
her half jokingly that they had arranged everything
of the kind should end with Jane Oglander's arrival.
" I think we owe Jane some consideration. She
would be miserable married to a man who was al-
ways being lionised in this absurd fashion "

He stopped, then added lightly, " You don't know
England, my dear cousin ; there will be a new lion

142

JANE OGLANDER 143

soon, then our friend will have to take a back place.
To do him justice I think he's already getting rather
sick of it all ! "

Mrs. Maule remained silent for a moment, and
then she exclaimed, with a rather curious look on
her lovely face, " I don't agree ! I think that he en-
joys it, Dick, and surely it is good for his career
that he should do so. Jane should understand
that!"

Wantele lifted his eyebrows. It was a trick of his
when surprised or amused. " He will go on having
plenty of that sort of thing after he's married — if
Jane let's him! "

Athena turned pettishly away. Thanks to Dick
Wantele she was never allowed to forget the fact
that her delightful, her famous guest was going to
be married — and to her own dearest friend. Dick
never spared her. He seemed to delight in " rub-
bing it in." It was the more irritating inasmuch as
Hew Lingard never spoke to her of Jane.

During those pleasant, exciting days Mrs. Maule
had sometimes asked herself whether Lingard ever
thought of Jane when — when he was with her, with
Athena. She had taken the trouble to find out, by
means not wholly creditable, that Lingard wrote to
Jane every day; and there was always one letter
from the many that reached him each morning
which he picked out first and put in his pocket. The
sight of his doing this gave Athena a little pang of
jealous pain. It annoyed her that any man when

144 JANE OGLANDER

with her should concern himself with another
woman.

And then something else on this last day added
to Mrs. Maule's depression. Her husband was not
well. He was feeling the effects of the excitement
of the last few days. Just after her unpleasant little
discussion with Dick, Richard Maule had addressed
her directly — a thing he scarcely ever did. " Aren't
you going away?" he asked ungraciously. "I
thought you were going away as soon as Jane Og-
lander arrived."

She had answered briefly that her plans were
changed, that she would not be leaving Rede Place
for nearly another month. But as, a moment later,
she had swept out of the room, she had told herself
with rage that her present life was intolerable, —
that no woman had ever to put up with such insults
as she had to put up with, from Dick on the one
hand, and Richard on the other !

Within an hour her feelings were assuaged. Lin-
gard, seeking her as he had now fallen into the way
of doing, had found her quivering with anger, and
what he took to be bitter pain.

She had told him of her husband's desire that she
should leave Rede Place on her friend's arrival, and
he had received her confidences with burning indig-
nation and passionate sympathy. Nay more, the at-
mosphere between them became electric, almost op-
pressive. Then, to Athena's sharp surprise and
annoyance, Lingard suddenly turned on his heel and

JANE OGLANDER 145

left the room, muttering something about having
work to do.

That evening, for the first time for many days,
Athena, General Lingard, and Dick Wantele dined
without the restraining presence of strangers. Dick,
unlike the other two, was in good spirits, nay more,
lively and, in his own rather caustic way, amusing,

Jane Oglander would be here to-morrow ! He
dwelt on the thought with satisfaction and an al-
most malicious pleasure. Ten days ago the thought
of seeing Jane at Rede Place had been painful, but
now he would welcome her presence. It was time,
high time, she were here.

Now and again, while talking to Athena, — he
could always compel her attention, — he stole a
glance at Jane Oglander's lover, Lingard did not
look as looks the man who is going to see his love
on the morrow. His expression was one of deep
gravity, almost of suffering. There was a strained
look about his eyes, his mouth was set in grim lines,
and unless directly addressed he remained silent,

Mrs, Maule soon finished her more than usually
frugal evening meal. She got up and left the table,
and as she did so Lingard sprang to the door. He
seemed to delight in rendering her the smallest per-
sonal service.

Before leaving the room, she turned round and
addressed Wantele : " Don't hurry," she said softly.
" We won't go into the drawing-room to-night.

146 JANE OGLANDER

I've got to write some notes. Quite a batch of let-
ters came this afternoon. There were just one or
two people I should have liked to have asked next
week — " she looked at him pleadingly, reproach-
fully. . . .

Wantele stared at her coldly. "Of course you
can ask one or two people," he said, and, with a
slight smile, " Don't make yourself out more of a
martyr than you must, Athena ! "

Hew Lingard, standing aside, his hand still on the
handle of the door, felt an overmastering impulse
to go back to the table and strike Dick Wantele's
sneering face across the mouth. How awful to
think, to see, that such a woman as Athena Maule,
so kind, so gentle, so generous, so — so lovely and so
defenceless, was subject to this young man's inso-
lence.

But he could do nothing — nothing; and Jane,
amazing thought, was actually fond of Wantele !

He shut the door behind his hostess and walked
slowly back to the table. There was a moment of
awkward silence, and then Wantele broke it by-
speaking of Jane. It was the first time her name had
passed his lips in Lingard's presence.

" Since Miss Oglander lost her brother in the
strange and terrible way you know," he said, " she
has shrunk very much from seeing people, I mean
from mixing in ordinary society. That is one rea-
son why she has always enjoyed her visits here.
The state of my cousin, Richard Maule's, health

JANE OGLANDER 147

compels us to lead a very quiet life." He forced him-
self to go on : " Mrs. Maule, as you know, is a good
deal away. She naturally does not care for the ex-
treme dulness, the solitariness, of the life "

Lingard muttered a word of assent, but he made
no other comment on the other man's words. He
took them to mean that Dick Wantele felt rather
ashamed of himself, as indeed he ought to do. Was
it not pitifully clear that Mrs. Maule, poor beautiful
Athena, had no part or place in her husband's house ?
All invalids tend to become self-absorbed and selfish ;
but he judged Wantele hardly for encouraging, nay
for fostering, Mr. Maule' s egoistic unkindness to
his wife.

Both men were glad when the time came for them
to part. Dick, as always, went off to Richard, and
Lingard, after a few unquiet moments in the smok-
ing-room, made his way slowly to Athena's boudoir,
the charming, restful room which, alone of the
many rooms in the big quiet house, seemed to be in
a real sense her territory, and where he and she had
spent so many delightful hours together.

But to-night he was met there with something
very like a rebuff.

Athena had been standing thinking, doing noth-
ing, but when she heard Lingard's now familiar
steps in the corridor she moved swiftly to her writ-
ing-table, and bent over it.

As he came in she lifted her head : " I really must
finish these notes," she said deprecatingly. " You

148 JANE OGLANDER

see, I had hoped to soften, if not Richard's, then
Dick's heart! Well, I failed, as I generally do fail
with him. And I feel " — her voice quivered —
" very much as poor Cinderella must have felt when
the clock was about to strike twelve."

As he stood, irresolute, before her, she added,
" Take a book and sit down. I'll be as quick as I
can." She got up with a swift movement and put
a box of cigarettes and matches close to his hand.

It was such a little thing, and yet, in the emotional
state in which he was now, Lingard felt touched, in-
expressibly touched. How extraordinarily kind and
thoughtful she was! No wonder Jane was so fond
of her.

Mrs. Maule went back to her writing-table, in-
tensely conscious that Lingard's ardent, melancholy
gaze was fixed on her. Now and again, perhaps
three or four times, she looked up for a moment
and smiled, her glance full of confident friendliness.
But she did not speak, and thus was spent one of
the shortest and most poignant half -hours of Lin-
gard's life.

At last there came harsh, unwelcome interruption
in the person of Dick Wantele. For a moment he
stood between them, his back to Lingard, facing
Athena.

" I've only come to tell you," he exclaimed, rather
breathlessly, " that Richard agrees that there are
two or three more people we ought to ask. I sug-
gested the Dight-Suttons."

JANE OGLANDER 149

" I've just written, this moment, to say we can't
have them," said Athena slowly.

Dick shrugged his shoulders with what seemed to
the man watching him an unmannerly gesture of ir-
ritation. " I'm sorry," he said curtly. " I had no
idea that you would be writing to them to-night, or
indeed to anyone to-night. Surely to-morrow
morning will be time enough. However, there are
one or two other people "

Lingard got up. " I think I'll go out of doors for
a bit," he said abruptly. " I haven't walked enough
to-day." It was horrible to him to stand by and see
Mrs. Maule insulted in her own house, in her own
room. He felt afraid that if he stayed there he
would lose control of himself and say something he
would regret having said to Dick Wantele.

And Athena, moving to one side, saw his low-
ering face, and she felt a thrill of possessive pride.
What a man Lingard seemed by the side of Dick
Wantele ! How well he must look in uniform. She
wondered, jealously, if Jane had ever seen him in
uniform. . . .

" Yes — do go out. And take the key — you know
— the key of the Garden Room off the mantelpiece.
But you must get a coat. It's cold to-night."

He shook hands with them both, and went out.
Dick only stayed a very few moments, — long
enough, however, to be told very plainly the names
of the people whom Athena wished to be invited.
He went off to Richard with her message.

150 JANE OGLANDER

Mrs. Maule began moving about the boudoir aim-
lessly. It was tiresome of Lingard to stay out so
long. She was used to another type of man, — one
more civilised, who would have understood in a mo-
ment what her quick glance at him had tried to con-
vey. That sort of man would have hung about in
the Garden Room till Dick Wantele had left her,
and then he would have come back at once.

But the great soldier — and the fact, it must be
admitted, was part of his attraction for Athena
Maule — was not in the least like that.

Lingard knew nothing of flirtation, as the word
was understood in Mrs. Maule's circle. She sup-
posed him, rightly, to be a man with but little
knowledge of the world in which the pursuit of the
tenderer emotions is carried to a fine art; she
judged him, erroneously, to be a man strangely
lacking in certain primitive instincts. But that
made the state of bondage to which she had al-
ready reduced him the greater triumph.

To a thinking mind there is something sombre,
disturbing, in the thought that the attraction of a
man to a woman, whatever be the quality of that at-
traction, manifests itself in much the same way.

Athena knew the signs. To-night every omen
pointed one way. She put the thought — the
slightly insistent memory — of Jane away from her.
Jane should have known how to guard what had
perhaps never been really hers.

She set her door ajar. It would be very annoy-

JANE OGLANDER 151

ing if General Lingard were to come in and, as
she knew he had done some nights ago, creep up
silently through the house. . . .

At last there came the sounds of footfalls across
the flags of the Garden Room. Athena began to
experience that curious sensation which goes by
the name of a beating heart. In other words, she
felt strung up to a high pitch of emotion.

Bayworth Kaye had given her some delicious
moments, but she had never felt with him what she
felt now. For the first time Athena — skilful hunt-
ress of men — had found a quarry worthy of pur-
suit. Was it possible that to-night her quarry
would elude her? Was it conceivable that Lingard
would push his scruples, his sense of absurd deli-
cacy, as far as that?

Athena had not yet learnt to reckon with Hew
Lingard's conscience, — the conscience, perhaps it
would be more true to say the honour, he had al-
ready deliberately thrust aside to-night, during
those few unquiet moments in the smoking-room.

She remained, however, absolutely still.

Lingard advanced a few steps nearer to the
partly open door. He was evidently hesitating,
and Athena felt she could bear the suspense no
longer.

" Is anyone there ? " she called out in a low
voice. " Is it Hew ? " She only called him by
that name when they were alone together.

He opened the door and came in.

152 JANE OGLANDER

" You must be cold," she said tremulously.
" Do come nearer the fire."

Lingard came towards her. No, he was not cold.
He had been walking, covering miles in the hour
he had spent trying to tire, to deaden, himself out.
It had been a terrible time of self-communion, self-
reproach, self-abasement.

The state he found himself in to-night recalled
with piteous vividness that episode of his stormy
youth which had led to his long break with the
Paches.

It was horrible that he should couple, even in
thought, Athena Maule and that — that creature,
over whom he had wasted, squandered, such treas-
ures of adoring love. Rosie had been one of those
young ladies who, to use a technical term, " walk
on " ; and because she was extraordinarily pretty,
she was always placed in the front row of the fool-
ish musical comedy of which he could still recall,
not only every tune, but almost every word, so
often had he been to the theatre after that first
meeting.

At the end of ten days, — he had known Athena
Maule ten days, what a strange coincidence! — at
the end of ten days he had asked Rosie to marry
him. She had shilly-shallied for a while, and then,
to his rapturous surprise, she had said " Yes."
How angry, how scandalised, how shocked his re-
lations had been!

Tommy Pache — in those days old Mr. Pache had

JANE OGLANDER 153

been " Tommy " to his relations — had hurried up
to London and said all the usual things that one
does say to a young fool on such an occasion, but
even he had been struck by the girl's beauty, though
of course Tommy had been careful not to let this
out to the others when he had got back to them.

How it all came back to him to-night! Lingard
remembered the letters he had received, the letters
he had written. It had gone on for some weeks —
he couldn't quite remember how long now, — that
time of anger, of impatience, of longing, of rapt-
ure. And then, within a very few days of that
fixed for the quiet wedding which was to take place
in a city church, — he had always avoided that part
of London ever since, — Rosie had become the wife
of another man, of a young idiot with a vacuous
face and an enormous fortune, of whom he had not
even troubled to be jealous, although his presence
in the flat Rosie shared with another girl had often
made him impatient.

Now Lingard felt desperately tired — tired in
body, tired in spirit. But he was glad — glad that
he had disregarded the promptings of his con-
science, of his honour. It was delicious to be here
indoors, with this kind, this enchanting, this an-
gelically beautiful woman close, very close, to him.

Athena held out her foot to the fire, and Lin-
gard, staring down, saw that she was wearing a
curious kind of slipper, one unlike any that he had

154 JANE OGLANDER

ever noticed on a woman's foot before, A sandal
rather than a shoe, it left visible the lovely lines of
the arched instep and slender ankle.

" You were out a long time," she said, and fixed
her eyes on the clock. It was one of the curious
costly toys of which Rede Place was full, and for
which old Theophilus Joy had had a marked predi-
lection. Fashioned like a tiny wall sundial, across
its face was written in faded gold letters, " I only
mark the sunny hours." The hands now pointed to
three minutes to midnight.

Lingard said no word. He went on staring
down at Athena's little foot. He was wondering
if she knew how exquisitely perfect she was physi-
cally, how unlike all other women.

" Isn't it odd to think," she whispered, " that in
a few moments another day will begin? I feel
more like Cinderella than ever — now. You have
given me such a good time," her voice trembled,
and he looked up and stared at her strangely.
" You've almost made me in love again with life,"
and she was sincere in what she said.

" I ? " said Lingard hoarsely. " I ? "

" Yes, you ! You don't know — how could you
know? — what it's been to me, what it would have
been to any woman, to have a man for a friend, to
feel at last that there is someone to whom one can
say everything "

He looked away from her. At all costs he must
prevent himself from showing what he felt — the

JANE OGLANDER 155

violent, the primitive emotion her simple, touching
words had called forth.

How utterly she would despise him if she knew !
He swore to himself she should never know that she
had made him all unwittingly traitor to the woman
she loved, — the woman alas! whom they both
loved. Lingard, and that was part of the punish-
ment he already had to endure, never left off lov-
ing Jane Oglander. Jane was always, in a spiritual
sense, very near to him; it was her physical self
which was remote.

The tiny gong behind the little clock began to
strike, quick precipitate strokes.

" Isn't it in a hurry ? " said Athena plaintively,
"in such a hurry to end the last of my happy
days." Her voice broke into a sob, and Lingard,
at last looking straight into her face, saw that tears
were rolling down her cheeks.

He gave a hoarse inarticulate cry. Athena
thought he said " My God ! " She was filled with a
sense of intoxicating happiness and triumph. Each
of the wild, broken words — words of self-abase-
ment, self-blame, self-rebuke, which Lingard ut-
tered, holding both her hands in his firm grasp, —
meant to her what fluttering white flags of surren-
der mean to besiegers.

With downcast eyes, with beating heart she
listened while Lingard, abasing himself and exalt-
ing her, took all the blame — and shame — on him-
self. His words fell very sweetly and comfortingly

156 JANE OGLANDER

on her ears. Athena had no wish to act treacher-
ously by Jane.

Any other man but this strange man would have
had her long ago in his arms, but Lingard, though
he held her hands so tightly that his grasp hurt,
made no other movement towards her, not even
when with a sobbing sigh she admitted — and as she
did so there came across her a slight feeling of
shame — that she, too, had been a traitor, an unwil-
ling, an unwitting traitor, to Jane these last few
days.

At last they made a compact — how often are
such compacts made, and broken? — that Jane
should never, never, know the strange madness
which had seized them both.

Lingard spoke of leaving the next day. Noth-
ing would be easier than to urge important busi-
ness in London. But again the tears sprang to
Athena's eyes.

" Don't go away," she murmured brokenly. " I
couldn't bear it! I promise you that Jane shall
never know. Don't leave me with Dick and Rich-
ard— they've both been kinder — indeed, indeed
they have — since you've been here, Hew "

He eagerly assured her that he would stay.
Flight was a cowardly expedient at best, and the
feeling he intended henceforth to cherish for
Athena Maule was nothing of which he need be
ashamed. It was a high, a noble feeling of com-
passion and respect. It was well, nay most fortu-

JANE OGLANDER 157

nate, that they had had this explanation; hence-
forth they would be friends. The very touch of
her cool hands resting so confidingly in his, had
driven forth certain black devils from his heart —
made him indeed once more true to Jane, — Jane
who, if she knew all, would understand. For there
were things Athena had told him of her life with
Richard which Jane did not know, — things which
it was not desirable Jane should ever know, and
which had filled him with an infinite compassion
for Richard's young, beautiful wife.

When Lingard bade her good-night, he resisted
the temptation, the curiously strong temptation, of
asking Mrs. Maule if she would allow him to kiss
her feet.

CHAPTER X

" The passion of love has a danger for very sensitive, re-
served and concentrated minds unknown to creatures of more
volatile, expansive and unreflective dispositions."

Dick Wantele walked with swinging nervous
strides up and down the short platform of the little
country station of Redyford. He had already been
there some time, for the local train run in connec-
tion with the London express was late. But he
was in no hurry — there would always be time to
tell Jane that she would not see her lover for some
hours.

Mrs. Maule had taken General Lingard over to
the Paches to lunch. It was a small matter, an al-
together unimportant matter, and it was certainly
no business of Wantele's to care about it one way
or the other. And yet he did care. He was jeal-
ous for Jane in a way she never would be for her-
self. And then — and then Lingard had allowed
himself to be bamboozled — no other word so well
expressed it — as to the time of Jane's arrival.

It had happened at breakfast. " Mrs. Pache is
expecting us — you and me — over to lunch,"
Athena said to Lingard.

And Wantele had cut in — " Jane is coming this
morning."

158

JANE OGLANDER 159

tc

No, indeed she isn't! We shall be back long
before she arrives," and then Athena had gone on,
addressing no one in particular, " Jane is the most
casual person in the world "

Lingard, throwing back his head with a quizzi-
cal look on his face, had exclaimed, " Yes, that's
one of the good things about her." He had shot
out the words as a sword leaps from its scabbard.

There had followed a moment of silence. And
then Athena had broken out into eager praise of
Jane — eager, inconsequent praise. But for once
Hew Lingard had seemed indifferent, hardly aware
of the sound of her voice.

Instead he looked across to Wantele : " I wonder
if you remember that curious phrase of George
Herbert ? ' There is an hour wherein a man might
be happy all his life could he but find it — ' "

Athena had stared at Lingard — what did he
mean by saying such an odd thing?

Then she had reminded Dick that the last time
Jane had been coming to Rede Place she had
changed her mind not once but three times, and
what Athena said had irritated Wantele the more
because she spoke the truth.

Jane was curiously uncertain and casual — women
of her temperament often are. She only made an
effort to be mindful of her engagements when deal-
ing with those concerning whom most people
would have said punctuality did not matter — with
those forlorn men and women adrift on the dark

i6o JANE OGLANDER

sea of South London, to whose service she had
given herself since her brother's death.

For a moment he, Dick Wantele, and Hew Lin-
gard, had been in that wordless sympathy which
between men means friendship. Wantele was
eager to be convinced that his suspicions were both
base and baseless. If only Athena would remove
her disturbing presence from Rede Place ! But he
knew her too well to hope that she would go — yet.

Here was the train at last, but where was Jane
Oglander? Dick looked before and behind him.
No, she was not there. She hadn't come after all.
She had, as usual, changed her plans at the last
moment. Athena was right, Jane was really too
casual! When he reached home he would find a
telegram from her explaining

And then suddenly he saw her walking towards
him from the extreme end of the platform. And
the mere sight of her dispelled, not only the irri-
tation of which he was now ashamed, but the anxi-
eties, the suspicions of the last ten days.

He had vaguely supposed that Jane would look
unlike herself, that the fact that she was going to
be Lingard's wife would have produced in her
some outward change. But she looked as she
always looked — set apart from the women about
her, especially from those of her own age, by the
greater simplicity, the almost austerity of her
dress. An old cottage woman had once said to

JANE OGLANDER l6i

Wantele, " Grey is Miss Oglander's colour, and if
she was 'appy perhaps Hght blue."

And as she came up to him, smiling, he remem-
bered what the old woman had said, for Miss Og-
lander was wearing a long grey cloak ; it was open
at the neck, and showed some kind of white vest
with a touch of blue underneath. On her fair hair,
framing her face, rested a Quakerish little cap-like
hat with strings tied under her soft chin.

" Dick," she said, " how kind of you to come
and meet me ! I'm so glad to see you ! "

And he saw with a queer feeling of mingled
pleasure and jealous pain that she did indeed look
glad; also that there had in very truth come a
change over her face. Jane Oglander possessed
that which it not always the attribute of beauty, a
great and varying charm of expression, but Wan-
tele had never seen her eyes filled, as they were
to-day, with gladness.

" I nearly came by the later train," she said.
" For I had to see a child off to the country, to a
convalescent home, and its train went at the same
time as mine. But I found a kind, understanding
porter, and so it was all right. Working people
are so good to one another, Dick. The porter
wouldn't take the sixpence I offered him for look-
ing after the little boy " And in her voice

there was still that under-current of joyousnesS
which was so new, and, to Wantele, so unexpected.

Jane Oglander looked as if the six last years had

i62 JANE OGLANDER

been blotted out, — as if she were again a happy
girl, pathetically, confidently ignorant of the ugly
realities of life.

They walked out of the station together, and
with a simultaneous movement they turned into
the field path which formed a short cut to Rede
Place, Soon they fell into the easy, desultory talk
of those who have many interests and occupations
in common. The young man had saved up many
little things to tell her — things that he thought
would amuse Jane, things about which he wished
to consult her.

And as they walked side by side, Wantele kept
reminding himself, with deep, voiceless melan-
choly, that this was the last time — the last time
that Jane Oglander would be what she had been for
so long, his chief friend and favourite companion.
Lingard — happy Lingard had been right. More
fortunate than Wantele, he had found that hour
most men seek and never find, the hour wherein a
man may be happy all his life.

They were now close to the house, and as yet
neither had spoken the name of Jane's lover.
"Shall we go in by the Garden Room?" asked
Wantele.

Now had come the moment when he must tell
her of Athena's and Lingard's absence ; also, when
he must, if he could bring himself to do so, wish
her joy.

" You'll have to put up with me for a bit longer,

JANE OGLANDER 163

Jane. Athena has taken General Lingard to lunch
at the Paches'. Of course you heard of the ac-
cident?"

"Yes," she said. "Poor Patty!" And then,
with a rather quizzical expression in her kind eyes,
" It's odd, isn't it, Dick, that Hew should be re-
lated to the Paches "

With no answering smile on his face, he ex-
claimed, "Amazing!"

He put the key in the lock, and turning it pushed
open, the glass door. Then he fell back so that she
should pass in before him.

" Jane," he muttered hoarsely, " Jane, you know
what I would say to you — how truly I wish you
joy "

She looked up, and then quickly cast down her
eyes. Wantele had grown very pale, across his
plain face was written suffering and renunciation.

" I knew," she said in a low voice, " I knew that
you would wish me joy."

Neither spoke again till they reached the Greek
Room.

There Wantele left her, and then Richard Maule
also said his word, his dry word, of congratulation.

" I like your soldier, Jane ! You know what I
had hoped would happen — ^but things that I hope
for never do happen "

But apart from these two interludes, the first
afternoon of Jane Oglander's stay at Rede Place
passed exactly as had passed innumerable other

I64 JANE OGLANDER

afternoons spent by her there in recent years. She
took a walk with Dick round the walled gardens
which were his special interest and pleasure; she
read aloud for a while to Richard.

Nothing was changed, and yet everything was
different. Last time Miss Oglander had stayed at
Rede Place, she had been almost daughter to Rich-
ard Maule, almost wife to Dick Wantele. Now
she was about to pass for ever out of their lives,
and on all three of them the knowledge lay heavy.

At four o'clock the Pachcs' motor returned with
a message that Mrs. Maule and General Lingard
were walking back and would not be home before
five.

Miss Oglander's first meeting with her lover at
Rede Place took place in the Greek Room. It was
six o'clock, she had given the two men their tea,
and then, voicing what they were all thinking,
" They're very late," said Richard Maule, and as
he uttered the words the door opened and the
truants walked in.

Wantele, sitting in his favourite place, away
from the fire, close under one of the high windows,
noted with reluctant approval that Athena did not
overdo her surprise. " Why, Jane, I didn't expect
you till the six-twenty train ! " — that was all she
said as she came forward and warmly greeted her
friend.

Wantele went on looking dispassionately at his

JANE OGLANDER 165

cousin's wife. To-day Athena had chosen the
plainest of out-of-door costumes. A girl of seven-
teen might have worn the very short skirt and sim-
ple little coat, but like everything she wore, they
made her, at the moment, look her best. The long
walk, and the companionship in which she had
taken the walk, had exhilarated her — intensified her
superb vitality. She looked like some wild, lovely
thing out of the woods, a nymph on whom Time
would never dare lay his disfiguring touch.

Lingard, hanging back behind her, showed him-
self no actor. He looked moody, preoccupied, al-
most sullen.

"Has anything happened to-day?" asked Mrs.
Maule. " Apart, I mean, from the happy fact of

Jane's arrival " she smiled radiantly at the

other woman.

Her husband's voice unexpectedly answered her,
and as he spoke he cast on her a look of hate, and
then his eyes rested with an air of rather malig-
nant, speculative curiosity on Lingard's dark,
gloomy face and restless eyes.

" Yes, something did happen during your short
absence. I had a call this morning from Mr.

Kaye " In an aside he muttered for Lingard's

benefit, " Mr. Kaye is our excellent clergyman,"
and then he went on, " I'm sorry to say he brought
bad news of his son."

All the caressing glow died from Athena's face;
it became suddenly watchful, wary.

i66 JANE OGLANDER

Mr. Maule went on, " Bayworth Kaye, it seems,
is lying very ill at Aden."

Mrs. Maule gave a slight sigh of relief. That
was not what she had thought, with a sudden over-
whelming fear, to hear Richard say.

" The Kayes are thinking of going out to him,
and they thought that I should be able to tell them
something about the place — how to get there, and
so on. But I advised them to wait a day or two
for further news,

" I heard about Bayworth Kaye's illness some
days ago," said Wantele slowly. " But I forgot to
tell you. I did, however, enquire about him yes-
terday. They seemed to know very little then "

" I have been longing, longing, longing to see
you, Jane! Now, at last we can have a talk "

Putting both her hands on Jane's unresisting
shoulders, Mrs. Maule gently pushed her friend
down into a low chair, and then knelt down by her.

They were in Jane's bedroom, and it still wanted
three-quarters of an hour to dinner,

Jane's eyes filled with happy tears. She was
moved to the heart. How good they all were to
her!

She could still feel the clinging, the convulsive,
grasp of Lingard's hand. She had not seen him
alone, even for a moment, but now, at last, they
were under the same roof, and each of his letters
from Rede Place had been a cry of longing for her.

JANE OGLANDER 167

,' »»

" We ought not to have gone to the Paches'/
cried Athena remorsefully. " But honestly it
never occurred to me that you would come till the
evening train, Jane."

Jane laughed through her tears. " I'm very
glad you went ! I enjoyed my quiet day here. And
oh I am so glad to see you, Athena! I was afraid
that you might be away."

" Do you really think I should leave Rede Place
— now ? " Athena looked searchingly into Jane's
face. " I know we are none of us conventional, but
still the proprieties have to be respected — some-
times!"

Jane reddened uncomfortably. She had not
thought of it in that way. She and Hew had been
so happy together alone in London. But no doubt
Athena was right.

Athena rose slowly, gracefully, from her knees,
and stood looking down at her friend with a rather
inscrutable smile. Jane moved uneasily, she felt
as if the other woman was gently, remorselessly
stripping her soul of its wrappings. . . .

" You look just the same," said Mrs. Maule,
still smiling that probing, mysterious smile, " just
as much a white and grey nun as you did before,
Jane. But I think this is the first time I ever saw
you blush. Go on blushing, dear — it makes you
look quite pretty and worldly ! "

Jane flinched beneath the intent questioning
gaze. She felt suddenly defenceless against a form

i68 JANE OGLANDER

of attack she had not expected from her friend. She
could not bear the Hghtest touch of raillery, still
less any laughing comment, on what was so deep
and sacred a thing to herself as her relation to
Lingard.

She got up, walked over to a window, and
pulled back the curtain.

Athena moved swiftly after her, and with a gen-
tle violence put her soft arms round Jane and pil-
lowed the girl's head on her breast.

" Jane ! " she whispered, " do forgive me — I un-
derstand, indeed I do ! But — but the sight of your
happiness makes me a little bitter. Richard has
been worse than ever this time. And Dick has
been — well, Dick at his very worst. I can't think
why he dislikes me so — but to be sure I have never
liked him either ! "

Jane heard her in troubled silence. Her feelings
of restful happiness, of exquisite content, had gone.

" I'm sure that General Lingard must have no-
ticed Richard's extraordinary manner to me,"
Athena spoke musingly. " Has he said anything
about it in any of his letters to you ? "

" No, never." Jane released herself from Mrs.
Maule's circling arms.

" I like your man so much," went on Athena,
stroking Jane's hair, " so very, very much ! I think
I like him more than I ever thought to like a man
again. But then he's so unlike most men, Jane."

Jane did not need Athena's words to convince

JANE OGLANDER 169

her that Hew Lingard was unlike other men. But
still her friend's words touched and pleased her.

" He's been so awful good to me these last ten
days! He's made everything easier. Fortunately
Richard took a great fancy to him. And he and I
— I know you won't be jealous, Jane — have become
true friends. When Dick isn't looking, we call each
other Hew and Athena ! "

"I am so glad," said Jane in a low voice; and
indeed she was glad that the two had " made
friends."

But again she was touched with vague discomfort,
again she shrank, when Mrs. Maule, leading her
back into the room, rained eager, insistent questions
on her

" Do tell me all about it ! How did it all begin ?
How did you ever come to know each other so well
before he went away? What made him first write
to you? Were they love letters, Jane? Come, of
course you must know whether they were love let-
ters or not ! You're not so simple as all that comes
to — no woman ever is ! "

But at last, driven at bay, her heart bruised by the
other's indelicate curiosity, Jane said slowly, " I dare
say I'm foolish — but I would rather not talk about
it, Athena."

A look o^ deep offence passed over Mrs. Maule's
face. Later on — much later on — Jane wondered
whether she had been wrong in saying those few
words — words said feelingly, apologetically.

170 JANE OGLANDER

" Of course we won't speak of your engagement
if you would rather not. I'm sorry. I had no idea
you would mind. I must go and dress now. But
just one word more, Jane. Of course you and Gen-
eral Lingard will like to be a good deal alone to-
gether— I'll give Dick a hint."

"No, no!" cried Jane. "Please don't do that,
Athena. I don't want anything of the sort said to
Dick."

But Mrs. Maule went on as if she had not heard
the other's words, " And you can always sit together
in my boudoir. Mrs. Pache was saying to-day that
it was a pity I didn't use the drawing-room more
than I do. She thought — it was so like an English-
woman to say so — that it smelt damp ! "

"As if we should think of turning you out of
your own room! How can you imagine such a
thing? I don't want you to make the slightest dif-
ference while I'm here. Hew and I will have plenty
of opportunities of seeing one another when we get
back to London. Please don't speak to Dick — I
should be very, very sorry if you spoke to Dick,
Athena."

CHAPTER XI

" Tu peux connaitre le monde, tu peux lire a livre ouvert
dans les plus caverneuses consciences, mais tu ne liras jamais,
oh ! pauvre femme, le cceur de ton ami."

And then there came a short sequence of days, full
of deep calm without, full of strife and disturbance
within.

Jane was ailing, and each day she fought with the
knowledge of what ailed her as certain strong na-
tures fight, and even for a while keep at bay, physical
disease.

But there came a moment when she had to face
the truth; when she had to tell herself that the new,
the agonising pain which racked her soul night and
day, leaving her no moment of peace, was that base
passion, jealousy.

It was horrible to feel that it was of Athena she
was jealous — Athena who seemed to be always there,
between Lingard and herself. She could not think
so ill of her friend as to suppose that this was Mrs.
Maule's fault ; still less would she accuse Lingard.

Gradually the knowledge had come to her that
when they three were together — Athena, Jane, and
Lingard — it was as if she, Jane, was not, so entirely
was Lingard absorbed in, possessed by, Athena.

Jane Oglander could not fight with the weapons

171

172 JANE OGLANDER

another woman in her place might have used. She
could not, that is, make the most of such odd mo-
ments, of such scanty opportunities as she might
have snatched from Athena Maule. How could the
trifling events which made up the sum of five or six
days have brought about such a change ?

She had thought to be so happy at Rede Place.
She had come there filled with a sense of tremulous
and yet certain gladness ; in the mood to be sought
by, rather than in that which seeks, the beloved.
Athena, Richard, and Dick, if they did not love each
other, surely each loved her sufficiently to under-
stand, to respect her joy.

The circumstances of her brother's death which
had fallen like a pall on her young life had set Jane
Oglander apart from happy, normal women. To
her the world had only contained one lover — Hew
Lingard ; and those days they had spent together in
a peopled solitude had taught her all she knew of the
ways of love.

It was instinct which had made her shrink, that
first night of her stay at Rede Place, from Athena's
insistent questioning; natural delicacy which had
made her refuse, almost with disgust, the sugges-
tion that she and Lingard should be set apart in an
artificial solitude. As yet their engagement was
secret from the world which seemed to take so great,
so — so impertinent an interest in Hew Lingard, and
she wished to keep it so as long as possible.

Then there was another reason, one which she

JANE OGLANDER 173

now told herself Athena should have divined, why-
Jane wished little notice to be taken of her engage-
ment. She had no wish to flaunt her happiness be-
fore Dick Wantele.

But now there was no happiness to flaunt — in its
place only a dumb misery and a jealousy of which
she felt an agonising shame.

To Jane Oglander it was as if another entity had
entered Hew Lingard's bodily shape — the bodily
shape that was alas ! so terribly dear to her.

Lingard was not unkind, he was ever careful of
her comfort in all little ways, but when they were
alone together — and this happened strangely seldom
— he would fall into long silences, as if unaware that
she, his love, was there.

From these abstracted moods Jane soon learnt
that she could rouse him only in one way. He was
ever ready to talk of Athena, — of their noble, lovely,
and ill-used friend ; and Jane, assenting, would tell
herself that it was all true, and that only long famili-
arity with the strange conditions of existence at
Rede Place had made her take as calmly as she did
the tragedy of Athena Maule's life — that tragedy
which now weighed so heavily on Lingard that it
blotted out for him everything and everybody else.

" I have told her she can always come and stay
with us when things get intolerable here," he had
exclaimed during one such talk, looking at Jane
with eager, ardent eyes ; and she had bent her head.

Then it was with Athena he discussed their fu-

174 JANE OGLANDER

ture, his and Jane's — the future in which Mrs.
Maule was, it seemed, to have so great a share.

It was on the seventh day of Jane's stay at Rede
Place that her lover for the first time, or so it
seemed to her sore heart, sought her company.

It fell about in this wise. Athena had been caught
by Mrs. Pache, who, taking a drive in her old safe
brougham for the first time since the motor accident,
had naturally chosen Rede Place. Lingard and
Dick Wantele at last escaped, leaving Mrs. Maule
prisoned by her guest. They had gone out of doors,
and chance had led them across Jane — Jane on her
way back from the Small Farm where Mabel Digby,
for the first time in her young life, lay ill in bed, un-
willing to see anyone, excepting Jane.

On hearing who had called, Miss Oglander had
wished to hurry in, but Lingard had cried imperi-
ously, " No ! you shan't be made to endure Cousin
Annie's congratulations! Come instead for a walk
with me ! " He had said the words in his old voice
— the voice Jane knew, loved, obeyed.

Dick Wantele looked quickly at them both. Was
it possible that Lingard was working himself free
of the fetters of which he was — Dick wished to
think it possible — still unaware? " Take him to the
Oakhanger," he said to Jane. " You can get there
and back in an hour "

Side by side they hastened, walking not as lovers

JANE OGLANDER 175

walk, but as do those who feel themselves to be
escaping from some danger which lies close behind
them. Jane was taking Lingard the shortest way
out of the park.

At last, at last she and Lingard would be alone,
away from Athena as they had never yet been away
from her during these long, to Jane these most mis-
erable, days.

For a while neither spoke to the other, then, as
they turned into one of the narrow streets of the
little country town, Lingard broke into hurried, dis-
connected speech, only to fall into moody silence as
they again emerged into the lonely country lane
leading to the large, enclosed piece of ground for
which they were bound.

The Hanger, as it was familiarly called in the
neighbourhood of Redyford, was a huge natural
mound rising from a low, undulating stretch of
wild furze-covered common. Through the eight-
eenth century it had formed part of the estate of
Rede Place, or rather it had been enclosed and
appropriated, together with other common land.

Thanks to the generosity, perhaps it should be
said the sense of justice, of Theophilus Joy, The
Hanger now belonged to the little town of Redy-
ford. In warm weather it was used by the town
folk as a picnic resort, though the nature and
formation of the ground, and of the mountainous
height which gave the place its name, made the

176 JANE OGLANDER

playing of games there impossible. This was as
well, for the huge mound remained unspoilt, and in
its stark way beautiful.

Sharply the two breasted the rising ground. The
wind swept athwart them in short, strong gusts.
Now and then there fell a spot of rain.

There was something in Jane Oglander's nature,
something hidden from those about her, which re-
sponded to wild weather. She now welcomed the
battle against wind and rain, and mounted with se-
cret exhilaration the steep slippery path winding
its way through and under the oak-trees which
clothed the right flank of The Hanger.

Once she tripped, and Lingard for a moment put
his arm round her, but she sprang forward, away
from its strong shelter; surprised, and a little
piqued, he kept behind her, letting her lead the now
darkling way, for twilight was falling.

On they climbed, till at last, emerging from un-
der the low oak branches, they stood, solitary fig-
ures, on a grassy ridge, bare save for a clump of
high twisted fir-trees which swayed gauntly against
the vast grey expanse of sky.

Owing to its peculiar formation. The Hanger
presented, especially at this time of the early even-
ing, an impression of almost monstrous height and
loneliness.

Sheer down on the right from whence they had
come lay the little town of Redyford, the grey and

JANE OGLANDER 177

red roofs partly hidden by the thick-set oaks. On
the left the ground sloped away more gently; but
it looked to-night as if a leap over the edge would
fling one down, down into the valley of meadow-
lands now white with curling mists.

Slowly they turned and walked along the ridge,
their feet sinking into the short soft turf growing
in patches of pale green among the mauve-grey
and brown heather. The path led up to a summer
house, a curious circular building crowning the
apex of the hill, and so wide open to wind, rain,
and view that only the deep-eaved roof afforded
any shelter to those under it.

It was there that Lingard, after a moment of
hesitation, led the way. " Jane," he said, " let us
come and sit down for a moment. I have some-
thing to ask you." And she followed him into
the poor shelter the summer house afforded. It had
stopped raining; the high wind reigned alone, vic-
torious.

The bench on which they sat down was heavily
scored with the initials of generations of Redyford
lovers; for the little round building had ever been
a temple of innocent courtship, and in the spring
and summer evenings never lacked couples sitting
in silent, inarticulate happiness.

Lingard's bare hand involuntarily rested on the
dented figures, the interlaced initials. . . .

Three weeks ago he would have prayed Jane's
leave to add a J. and an H. to these rude scores,

178 JANE OGLANDER

for three weeks ago he had been one of the great
company of the world's lovers, understanding and
sympathising with all the absurdities of love.

And now — even now, though he knew himself
for a traitor to the woman sitting silent by his side,
he yet felt in a strange way that the link between
them was eternal — that in no way could it be
broken. Each, so he assured himself fiercely, had
a call on the other.

He was about to put this belief, this instinctive
certainty, to the test.

" As I said just now, I've something to ask you,
Jane " His words came haltingly; to his lis-
tener they sounded very cold.

" Yes, Hew ? " She looked round at him. He
was staring at the ground as if something lay there
he alone could see.

" I asked you to come out with me to-night, be-
cause— because " — and then in a voice so low, so
hoarse, that she had to bend forward to catch the
words — " I want to ask you, to implore you, Jane
— to marry me at once."

" At once ? " she repeated. " When do you
mean by at once, Hew? " She also spoke in a still,
low voice. They seemed to be hatching a conspir-
acy of which one, if not both, should feel ashamed.

And more than ever it seemed to Jane Oglander
as if another man, a stranger, had taken possession
of Hew Lingard's shape.

** I mean at once ! " he answered harshly. " To-

JANE OGLANDER 179

morrow — or the day after to-morrow. There's no
necessity why we should ever go back to Rede
Place ! Why shouldn't we walk down to the sta-
tion now, from here ? We should be in London in
an hour and a half. People have often done
stranger things than that. We could send a mes-
sage from the station to " His voice wavered,

his lips refused to form Mrs. Maule's name.

He thrust the thought of Athena violently from
him; and with the muttered words, " Can't you un-
derstand? I love you — I want you, Jane " he

turned and gathered the woman sitting so stilly by
his side into his arms.

She gave a stifled cry of surprise ; and then, as
he kissed her fiercely once, twice, and then again,
there broke from her a low, bitter sigh — the sigh
of a woman who feels herself debased by the
caresses for which she has longed, of which she
has been starved.

To Jane Oglander a kiss, so light, so willing a
loan on the part of many women, was so intimate
a gift as to be the forerunner of complete sur-
render. And to-night each of Hew Lingard's
kisses was to her a profaned sacrament. Not so
had they kissed on that day in London. Now his
kisses told her, as no words could have done, of a
divided allegiance.

She lay unresponsive, trembling in his arms, her
eyes full of a wild, piteous questioning. . . .

i8o JANE OGLANDER

With a sudden sense of self-loathing- and shame
he released her from his arms.

"Well?" he said sullenly. "Well, Jane?" but
he knew what her answer would and must be.

" I can't do what you wish, Hew. I don't think
that either of us would be happy now — if we did
that," She spoke in a quiet, restrained voice. She
was too miserable, too deeply humiliated, for tears.

Together they walked out of the summer house
and retraced their steps along the ridge.

" As I cannot do what you wish, would you like
me to end our engagement ? "

He turned on her fiercely. " I did not think," he
cried, " that there lived a woman in the world who
could be as cruel as you have been to me to-night ! "

" I did not mean to be cruel," she said mourn-
fully.

" Unless you wish to drive me to the devil, don't
speak like that again," he said violently. " Prom-
ise me, I mean, that you won't tnink of breaking
our engagement."

She made no answer, and a few moments later
in a gentler tone he asked, " Can't you understand,
Jane?"

She said humbly, " I try to understand."

A great and a healing flood of tenderness filled
her heart, and as if the spiritual tie between them
was indeed of so close a nature that Lingard felt
her softening for the first time put his hand in hers.

JANE OGLANDER i8l

" Jane," he said huskily, " forgive me. Try to for-
get to-night."

So they walked in silence, hand in hand, through
the solitary lane and the now lighted streets of
Redyford, uncaring of the few passers-by.

But when they came to the park gates Lingard
withdrew his hand from hers, and at the door of
the Garden Room he left her. " I won't come in
yet," he said abruptly, and turning on his heel he
disappeared into the night.

And with Jane's going something good and no-
ble in Lingard went too, and as he walked into the
darkness he lashed himself into a sea of deep in-
jury and pain. His heart filled with anger rather
than with shame when he evoked the look almost
of aversion, of protesting anguish, which had come
into her face while his lips had sought and found
unresponsive her sweet, tremulous mouth.

He had been longing, craving, for that which he
had now only the right to demand from her, and
she had cruelly repulsed him.

How amazing that a fortnight — or was it three
weeks? — could have so altered a woman!

Even now the memory of those days they had
spent together immediately on his return home was
dear and sacred to him.

Could he have been mistaken, — such was the
question he asked himself to-night, — in his belief

i82 JANE OGLANDER

that Jane Oglander had been exquisitely sensitive,
responsive as are few human beings to every high
demand of love?

Was it that his unspoken, unconfessed treachery
had killed, obliterated in her the pow^er of response ?
Nay, it was far more likely that he had made a
mistake, — that the woman he loved was cold, as
many tender women are cold, temperamentally in-
capable of that fusion of soul and body which is
the essence of love between a man and a woman.

Had he not discovered this lack in Jane through
his contact with a very different nature — with one
who was full of quick, warm-blooded, generous im-
pulses? Athena Maule might do foolish things, —
she had admitted to him that more than once she
had been tempted to do wild, reckless things, — but
it was only her heart that would lead her astray.

The man in Lingard, knowing as he thought the
hidden truth which underlay her story, felt full of
burning sympathy.

As he at last walked back to the house, it was
pleasant to him to feel that he would be able to
forget the painful, the humiliating hour he had
gone through with the woman who was to be his
wife, in the company of Athena Maule.

Athena was in her boudoir. She had been there
alone for two hours, and they had been hours filled
with impatient revolt and anxiety.

JANE OGLANDER 183

After Mrs. Pache had gone Athena had tried to
find first Jane, and then Lingard. Then Dick Wan-
tele, meeting her, had casually observed that the
two others had gone out for a long walk.

Jane and Lingard out together beyond her ken
and pursuit? The knowledge stabbed her. Athena
was convinced, aye quite honestly convinced, that
these two, her friends both of them, were ill-suited
the one to the other.

She felt the breach between herself and Jane,
and it hurt her the more because she had done noth-
ing— nothing to deserve that Jane should avoid
her as she sometimes felt sure Jane was doing.

It was not her fault if General Lingard was
gradually coming to see the terrible mistake he had
made. But to-night, while waiting, too excited,
too impatient to do anything but sit and stare into
the fire, she told herself that she was also disap-
pointed in Lingard.

What a strange, peculiar man he was ! Since
the night before Jane Oglander's arrival he had said
nothing — nothing that is, that all the world might
not have heard. And yet she could not mistake his
thraldom. If nothing else had proved it, Dick
Wantele's behaviour would have done so. Twice
in the last few days Dick had made a strong, a
meaning, appeal to Athena to leave Rede Place.
Her heart swelled at the thought of Dick's dis-
courtesy and unkindness. She even wondered if

i84 JANE OGLANDER

he had dared to say anything to Lingard. During
the last two days Lingard had certainly avoided
finding himself alone with her.

The only one of them all who seemed perfectly at
ease, and who was as usual absorbed in his own self-
ish ills and in his dull books, was Richard. Fortu-
nately he took up a great deal of Jane's time.

At last, when it was nearly seven o'clock, the door
opened, and Lingard came in. He had instinctively
made his way to her, without stopping to think
whether he were wise or no in what he was doing.
During the last two days, putting a strong restraint
on himself, he had avoided Athena, and his strange
request to Jane, his pleading for an immediate mar-
riage, had been the outcome of the state in which
he found himself.

But now everything was changed. Jane had de-
nied him, and he felt an imperative need of the kind,
comfortable words Athena would lavish on him. He
was sick of lies — of the lies he had told himself.
He hungered for Athena's presence. What an un-
mannerly brute she must have thought him, to have
avoided her as he had done, all that day and all the
day before !

Very gently she bade him sit down, and in some
subtle fashion she ministered to Lingard in a way
that restored to a certain extent his feeling of self-
respect. And then at last, when secure that there
would be no interruptions, for the dinner bell had

JANE OGLANDER 185

rung some moments before, she leant forward and
said slowly, " Is something the matter ? Is anything
troubling you, Hew ? Is it a matter in which I can
help?"

She desired above all things that he should speak
to her of Jane Oglander. But her wish was not to
be gratified.

" Everything is troubling me," he said sombrely.
"Everything!"

She moved a little nearer to him. Her hand lay
close to his. Suddenly he took her hand and held it.
" I loathe myself," he said in a low voice. " I
needn't tell you the reason why, Athena, — you know,
you understand "

" Ah! Yes — I understand," there was a thrill in
her voice. " How often I have felt ashamed of my
own longing — of my longing to be free ! "

It was a bow at a venture. He looked at her with
dazed eyes. That was not what he had meant. Then
suddenly he caught fire from her thin flame. " If
you were free? " he repeated thickly. " I wish to
God, Athena, that you were free "

She withdrew her hand from his, and got up.
" It's nearly eight o'clock," she said quietly. " We
must go up and dress now."

CHAPTER XII

" There's not a crime
But takes its proper change still out in crime
If once rung on the counter of this world."

All that night Athena lay awake. Her brain was
extraordinarily alive. She had not had so bad a
bout of wakefulness for years.

If only she were free!

She lay wondering what Lingard had meant by
those words — words which she had put into his
mouth, and which he had uttered in the thick tones
of a man who has lost control of himself, and who
speaks scarce knowing what he says.

In the world in which Mrs. Maule lived when she
was not at Rede Place, it was a firmly-established
belief that those unhappily or unsuitably married
could, by making a determined effort, strike off their
fetters. And in this connection it had been grad-
ually borne in upon her that the good old proverb
which declares that where there's a will there's a
way is, in the England of to-day, peculiarly true of
everything that pertains to the marital relations of
men and women.

The question had never before touched her nearly,
and Athena as a rule only concerned herself with
what did touch her nearly.

l86

JANE OGLANDER 187

However much she chafed ag'ainst the bonds
which bound her to Richard Maule, the thought that
she, Mrs. Maule of Rede Place, should join the
crowd of ambiguous women who are neither maids,
nor wives, nor widows, was unthinkable. Her day,
so she often secretly reasoned with herself, would
come later — after Richard's death. At the time of
their marriage he had made magnificent, absurdly
magnificent settlements. He could do nothing to
alter that fact ; so much she had been at some pains
to ascertain. Meanwhile, she made the best she
could of life.

But now, with a dramatic suddenness which
strongly appealed to her calculating and yet undis-
ciplined nature — an unlooked for piece of good for-
tune had come her way. Were she free, or within
reasonable sight of freedom, the kind of life for
which she now longed passionately was almost cer-
tainly within her grasp,

Lingard the man roused in Athena Maule none of
that indescribable sensation, part physical, part men-
tal, which she had at first thought, nay hoped, he
would do. But that, so she told herself with uncon-
scious cynicism, was a fortunate thing. She had
now set her whole heart on being Lingard's wife, —
only to secure that end would she be Lingard's lover.
Her wild oats were sown. Never more would she
allow herself to become the prey of passion, — that
" creature of poignant thirst and exquisite hun-
ger. ..."

i88 JANE OGLANDER

She gave but a very fleeting- thought to Lingard's
engagement to Jane Oglander. Engagements are
perpetually made and broken, and fortunately this
particular engagement had not even been publicly
announced.

No ; what deeply troubled her, what stood in the
way of the fruition of her desire was — Richard, the
man who had so slight a hold on life, and yet who
seemed so tenacious of that which had surely lost all
savour.

In the darkness of the night, the pallid face of
Athena's husband rose before her, — cruel, watchful,
streaked, as it so often was when Richard looked her
way, with contempt as well as hatred.

How amazingly Richard had altered in the ten
years she had known him, and in nothing more than
in the expression of his face, which she now vis-
ioned with such horrible vividness !

In old days Richard Maule had had a handsome,
dreamy, placid face, — the kind of profile which looks
to great advantage on a cameo or medal. Now, as
Athena often told herself, it was the face of a suf-
fering devil, and of a devil, alas! who looked as if
he would never die.

But the days when she had measured anxiously
the span of Richard's life were past. Athena, now,
could not afford to wait for her husband's death;
she must find some other way to freedom.

There was a story which had remained imprinted
for two years — or was it three? — on the tablets of

JANE OGLANDER 189

Mrs. Maule's memory, and this was the more
strange, the more significant, because she had not
come across the case in any direct way.

All she could remember of the affair — luckily she
had a very good memory for such things — had been
told her by a certain Mrs. Stanwood, who was noted
for her extraordinary knowledge of other people's
business, and for whom Athena had never had any
particular liking.

But now the idle words of this casual acquaint-
ance became tremendously significant, pregnant with
vital issues.

She sat up in the darkness and pressed her hands
against her face in her effort to recapture every word
of what had been at the time so unimportant a piece
of gossip.

The story had been told her at Ranelagh. She
could still see the low-ceilinged entrance hall where
the eagerly whispered words had been uttered.

They were standing together, Athena and Maud
Stanwood, waiting for the rest of their party, when
there had swept by them a pretty, well-dressed, tired-
looking woman. Suddenly, a man had come for-
ward and the two for a moment met face to face.
Then, with a muttered word of apology, the man
passed on.

Mrs. Stanwood clutched Athena's arm. " Do
look at them ! " she whispered. " How very dra-
matic! I wonder if this is the first time they have
met since the case ! " And Athena obediently stared

190 JANE OGLANDER

at the pretty, tired-looking woman; the man had
disappeared.

" Who is she ? Who are they ? What case do you
mean? " she asked.

And the other answered provokingly, " Surely
you remember all about it ? "

" But I don't remember. Please tell me ? Was it
a divorce case ? " Athena spoke a little pettishly.

"Divorce? Oh, no! Something- quite different.
Why, if she had been divorced she would not be
here. No, no; their marriage was annulled. The
case made quite a talk because they had been mar-
ried so long — I believe fourteen years. I was at
the wedding. She was such a pretty bride. Of
course she married again — the other man. But it's
rather bad taste of her to come here now, for she
used to be here a good deal with him — I mean with
her first husband."

Athena, amused with the tale, had pressed the
other to tell her all about it, and Mrs. Stanwood,
nothing loth, had proceeded to do so, quoting sim-
ilar cases, and intimating, with the shrewdness
which always distinguished her, how odd it was that
more childless women didn't have recourse to so
easy, so reputable a way of ridding themselves of
dull and undesirable husbands!

A sensation of intense relief, nay more, of tri-
umphant satisfaction, stole into Athena's heart.
What that woman, that nervous, pretty, faded-look-
ing woman, had done after fourteen years of mar-

JANE OGLANDER 191

riage, Athena could certainly do now. No one look-
ing at Richard — at that poor, miserable wreck of a
man — could doubt that Mrs. Maule had a right to
her freedom.

" If only you were free ! " She was not quite sure
in what sense Lingard had uttered those memorable
words, but it was enough for her that he could, if
necessary, be reminded of having said them. Once
she were indeed free, Lingard, so Athena felt com-
fortably sure, would not need to be so reminded.

Nature, so unkind to woman, has given her one
great advantage over man. She can, while herself
remaining calm, rouse in him a whirlwind of tem-
pestuous emotion.

Many a time in the last few years Mrs. Maule had
heard the cry, "If only you were free! " but, while
listening with downcast eyes to the hopeless wish,
she had known well that the speaker did not really
mean what he said, or if he meant it — poor Bay-
worth Kaye had meant it — then he was, like Bay-
worth, ineligible, or if eligible as a lover, absurdly
ineligible as a husband.

Her acute, subtle mind, trained from childhood
only to concentrate itself on those problems which
affected, or might affect, herself, turned to the lesser
problem of Jane Oglander.

Jane Oglander was an obstacle. Far less an one
than Richard, but still likely to be a formidable ob-
stacle owing to Lingard's strained sense of honour.

So much must be frankly admitted. But it would

192 JANE OGLANDER

be a mistake to make too much of Jane. Once Jane
realised how unsuited she was to become Hew
Lingard's wife, she would draw back — of that Ath-
ena felt assured.

But how could Jane be brought to understand?
Would Lingard himself ever allow her to see the
truth, or would the task fall to her — to Athena?

If what the world now thought were true, Hew
Lingard might hope to rise to almost any eminence
in the delightful, the glorious career of arms. But
for that, and again Athena was quite sincere with
herself, he would need to have by his side a clever
and brilliant woman, without whose help he might
find himself shelved as many another man of action
has been. It was this fact that someone ought to
convey to poor Jane Oglander.

Within the last few months, by merely saying a
word to a distinguished personage at the War Office,
Mrs. Maule had been able, so she quite believed, to
advance Bayworth Kaye materially — to procure
him, that is, a post on which he had set his heart,
and for which he was eminently fitted.

The official in question had been extremely cau-
tious, not to say cold, during their little conversa-
tion, but a week or two later Athena had been grat-
ified to receive from the great man a pretty little
note in which he had informed her that her protege
— as he called poor Bayworth — was going, after all,
to be given the post for which he was so admirably
qualified.

JANE OGLANDER 193

Athena had no reason to under-estimate her pow-
ers. The average man always, and the exceptional
man generally, capitulated at once. Even politicians
were indulgent to her ignorance, nay more, amused
by her lack of knowledge of British public affairs.
But Athena was now coming to see the value of such
knowledge.

Since the arrival of General Lingard, she had
realised that there were all sorts of things which
ordinary women — such women as Jane Oglander
and Mabel Digby — know, but which she had never
taken the trouble to learn. Lingard had already
taught her a good deal. She had early adopted the
excellent principle, when with a man, of allowing
him to talk, especially when the subject was one
about which she knew little or nothing.

Lingard would have been amazed indeed had he
known that a fortnight ago Athena Maule had
scarcely heard of these subjects — so vitally interest-
ing to those concerned with the expansion of our
Empire in Africa — about which she now questioned
him so intelligently.

The next day opened with very ill news — the news
that Bayworth Kaye was dead.

As is the way in the country, the servants heard
the bare fact some time before it reached their bet-
ters. It formed the subject of discussion in the serv-
ants' hall on the previous evening, for the fatal tele-
gram had reached the rectory at seven o'clock, and

194 JANE OGLANDER

its contents had made their way, first to the stables
of Rede Place, and from thence to the house half an
hour later, at the very time Lingard was echoing
Athena's words, " If only you were free! "

" You'll 'ave to tell her when you go in with the
cup of tea," observed Mr. Maule's valet to Mrs.
Maule's French maid, Felicie. But the woman
shrugged her shoulders, with a " Ma foi, non ! "

They had all wondered, with sighs and mysterious
winks, how Mrs. Maule would take the news. The
Corsican chef expressed great concern. " Ce pauvre
jeune homme est mort d'amour ! " he exclaimed to
Felicie, and she nodded solemnly, explaining and
expanding his remark to the others.

" Gammon ! An Englishman — an officer and a
gentleman — don't die of such a thing as love," the
butler said scornfully, and Felicie again had
shrugged her shoulders. What did these unimagi-
native barbarians know of the tender passion? —
nothing, save when it touched their own sluggish
souls and bodies. Poor Monsieur Bayworth — so
young, so gallant, always kindly and civil to Felicie
herself. So unlike that prude, his mamma! Felicie
had but one regret — that she had never seen Mon-
sieur Bayworth in uniform.

Wantele was told the next morning. Bayworth
Kaye — Bayworth, whom he had known with an af-
fectionate, kindly knowledge from his birth up-
wards— dead? He felt a sharp pang remembering
how coldly he and the young man had said good-bye

JANE OGLANDER 195

less than a month ago. After all, it was not Bay-
worth who had been to blame for all that had hap-
pened during the last year. . . .

He came down to breakfast hoping that the news
which he had himself learnt but a few moments be-
fore was already known to Athena. If that were
the case, she would probably stay upstairs. Break-
fast in bed is one of the many agreeable privileges
civilised life offers woman.

Only since General Lingard had been staying at
Rede Place had Mrs. Maule come down each morn-
ing. She had evidently begun doing so during those
three days which had laid so solid a foundation to
her friendship with Lingard.

But if Athena were still in ignorance of young
Kaye's death, then to him, Wantele, must fall the
painful, the odious, task of telling her. He could
not be so cruel as to allow her to discover the fact
from the morning papers. Of late — and again Dick
traced a connection between the fact and Lingard's
presence at Rede Place — Mrs. Maule generally
glanced over one of the papers before opening her
letters.

Lingard came into the dining-room, and then, a
moment after, Mrs. Maule and Jane Oglander to-
gether.

Wantele glanced quickly at his cousin's wife.
With relief he told himself that Athena had heard
the melancholy news. She looked ill and tired, her
eyelids were red, her beauty curiously obscured.

196 JANE OGLANDER

She came up languidly to the breakfast table, and
Lingard looked at her solicitously. She put out her
hand and let it rest for a moment in his grasp. Her
hand was cold, and he muttered a word of concern.

" I couldn't sleep," she said. " I shall have to take
chloral again — it's the only vice Richard and I ever
had in common ! "

Lingard turned abruptly away. It had become
disagreeable to him to hear her utter Richard
Maule's name. And Athena felt suddenly discom-
fited. The plans she had made in the night became
remote from reality.

She sat down and her eyes began following Lin-
gard. He was waiting on Jane, taking trouble to
get Jane what he supposed she liked to eat — and
leaving her, Athena, his hostess, to Dick Wantele's
care.

So far, she had never had the power to make
Lingard neglect Jane in those small material things
which mean so much to some women and so little to
others. Personal service meant a great deal to
Athena Maule. The sight of Lingard and Jane
Oglander together was becoming unendurable to
her.

" D'ye know, Dick, if there's any more news of
Bay worth Kaye ? "

It was Jane who spoke. She also felt ill and
tired; she also had not slept that night; but Lin-
gard's anxious look and muttered word of concern
had not been for her. True, he was " looking after

JANE OGLANDER 197

her " now, bringing her food she had no wish to eat,
making her — and what a mockery it was — his spe-
cial care.

But what was this that Dick was saying in so
hushed a voice, in answer to her idle question ?

" Yes, I'm sorry to say there is news — bad news."

The speaker was intensely conscious of Athena's
presence. Did she know, or did she not know, what
he was about to say ? He added slowly, " Poor
Bay worth Kaye is dead."

Jane uttered an exclamation of horror and con-
cern. Athena said nothing; but she took a piece of
toast out of the tiny rack in front of her plate, and
began crumbling it in her hand.

"Yes, it's a terrible thing" — Wantele was now
speaking to Lingard. " The poor fellow was an
only son — indeed, an only child. We've known him

all his life. It will be a shock to Richard " He

talked on, and still Athena remained silent.

But when at last Jane turned to her with, " I sup-
pose you will be going down to the rectory this
morning?" Mrs. Maule threw back her head and
spoke with a touch of angry excitement in her
voice : —

" Why did you tell me now, Dick, before break-
fast ? You've made me miserable — miserable ! You
know I hate being told of anyone's death. I hate
death! No, I shan't go to the rectory — you can
go, Jane, and say all that should be said from Rich-
ard and from me."

198 JANE OGLANDER

Lingard looked severely at Wantele. How stupid,
how heartless, the young man was always showing
himself! Why had he hastened to tell sad news
which he must have known would so much distress
Athena and Jane Oglander ?

" I'm so sorry! I was afraid you would see it In
one of the papers," Wantele spoke as if he did in-
deed repent of his cruel lack of thought.

Athena accepted his apology in silence. After a
while she turned to her guest : —

" I wish you had met poor Bayworth Kaye," she
said musingly, " he was just the sort of man you

would have liked. He was tremendously keen "

Then she stopped short; looking up she had met
Dick Wantele's light-coloured eyes fixed on her face
with an expression of — was it extreme surprise or
angry disgust?

She looked straight at him : " Don't you agree,
Dick?"

" Yes, yes," he said hastily, "I certainly agree,"
and his eyes wavered and fell before her frank,
questioning gaze.

CHAPTER XIII

"L'amour et la douleur sont parallels
Ces deux lignes-la vont a jamais ensemble."

Owing to the peculiar conditions of his life, a life
led almost entirely apart from the rest of his house-
hold, Richard Maule seldom had occasion to see
Hew Lingard and Athena together. But the owner
of Rede Place always realised a great deal more of
what was going on than those about him credited
him with doing, and on his wife he kept a constant,
secret watch of which she alone became sometimes
uncomfortably aware.

As the fine autumn days — to the stricken man the
pleasantest time of the year — wore themselves away,
Richard Maule grew particularly kind and consider-
ate to Jane Oglander.

He was very susceptible to the physical condition
of those about him, and he noticed that she had al-
tered strangely during the short time she had been
at Rede Place. She was pale and listless ; and often
when with him she sat doing nothing, saying
nothing.

Every time they were alone together — and that
now was very often — the past came back to Richard
Maule, especially that time of his life when he lay
ill to death eight years ago in Italy.

199

200 JANE OGLANDER

Looking furtively at her strained, unhappy face,
he would recall the agony of rage and despair in
which he had lain at a time when he had been sup-
posed by those about him to be absorbed in his phys-
ical condition — if indeed conscious of anything
at all.

In those days Athena had still preserved a simu-
lacrum of regard, of affection for her husband, and
when she came into his room, when she stood at the
bottom of his bed looking with mingled repugnance
and pity at his distorted face, he longed to rise and
destroy the wanton who had been so adoringly loved
and so wholly trusted.

They were sitting together now, Jane Oglander
and Richard Maule, on the afternoon of the day
which had opened with the news of Bay worth
Kaye's death. It was warm and sunny, and the
three others had gone out of doors after luncheon
— for Dick Wantele, Athena was well aware of it,
had fallen into the way of never leaving the other
two alone together if he could possibly prevent it.

Wantele could not understand Jane's attitude.
Did she suspect her friend's treachery ? He found it
impossible to make up his mind one way or the
other. In any case Jane and Lingard were not like
normal lovers — but Wantele had lived long enough
in the world to know that there is every variety of
lover. Sometimes he thought Jane trusted Lingard
so implicitly as to be still blind.

JANE OGLANDER 201

A letter addressed to Miss Oglander was brought
in to her.

" It's from Mrs. Kaye," she said quickly. " May
I open it, Richard? " *

She glanced through it: —

" Dear Miss Oglander " (it ran), " My husband
and myself thank you sincerely for your kind words
of sympathy. Had I known you were the bearer of
your letter I would have seen you. I am writing to
ask if you will do me a kindness. I know that Gen-
eral Lingard is staying at Rede Place, and I write
to ask if it would be possible for me to see him on
a matter of business connected with my son. I ven-
ture to ask if he will kindly come at eleven o'clock
on Thursday. I cannot fix any time before that
day. I should have written to Mr. Wantele, but as
I had to answer your note, I thought I would ask
you to arrange this for me."

She told herself with quivering lip that of course
Hew should go and see poor Mrs. Kaye. Hew was
always kind. He would be patient and understand-
ing with the unhappy woman.

Jane got up. Perhaps she could go and settle the
matter at once. She looked at Richard Maule. He
was turning over the leaves of a book. Richard
would not miss her. There came over her a despair-
ing feeling that no one now needed her, in any dear
and intimate sense. . . .

Once she had asked her small vicarious favour of
Hew, she could write to Mrs. Kaye, and take the

202 JANE OGLANDER

note to the rectory herself. It would give her some-
thing to do, and just now Jane Oglander was in
desperate need of things to do.

Athena had said something of showing General
Lingard the walled gardens which were all that
remained of the old Tudor manor house from which
Rede Place took its name, and which had been left
by Theophilus Joy as a concession to English taste.

It was there, some way from the house, that Jane
made her way, and there that she at last found those
she sought.

Mrs. Maule had suddenly become alive to the
many and varied outdoor beauties of her country
home. All the nice women she knew were fond of
gardening. It was the feminine fad of the moment,
and one with which she had hitherto had very lit-
tle sympathy.

Athena sincerely believed herself to be devoted to
flowers, but she preferred those varieties that look
best cut and in water. Still, to be interested in her
garden, and in what grew there, belonged to the
part which was, for the moment, so much herself
that she was scarcely conscious of playing it.

Perhaps one reason why Mrs. Maule had never
cared for gardening was because her husband's
cousin was so exceedingly fond of it. The old gar-
dens of Rede Place were to Wantele an ever-recur-
ring pleasure, and, what counted far more in the
life he had to lead, an infinitely various, as well as
a congenial occupation.

JANE OGLANDER 203

As Jane walked through an arch leading to the
pear orchard, she saw that Dick was giving instruc-
tions to one of the gardeners; a small sack of bulbs
lay at their feet.

Hew Lingard and Athena Maule stood a little
back, and as Jane came down the path, Mrs. Maule,
instead of coming forward, moved further away.
Instinct told her that Jane was seeking Hew Lin-
gard with some definite purpose in her mind — and
she determined to thwart the other woman. To
allow Hew Lingard to continue his anxious def-
erence to Jane were but cruel kindness to them
both.

She put out her gloveless hand and laid a finger
on Lingard's arm — it was the merest touch, but it
produced an instant, a magical effect. He turned,
and in a moment gave her his entire, his ardently
entire, attention.

Wantele welcomed Jane with an eager, " What
would you think, Jane, of putting a mass of starch
hyacinths over in that corner? "

She tried obediently to give her mind to the ques-
tion, but it was of no use, and she shook her head.
" I don't know," she said. " I — I can't remember
what was there before "

And then she called out, " Hew ! "

But Lingard did not hear the call.

She moved a little nearer to where he and Athena
were standing. Again she said her lover's name;
but this time she uttered it in so low, so faltering a

204 JANE OGLANDER

tone that Lingard might indeed have been excused
for not hearing it.

She waited a moment for the answer that did not
come, and then she turned and walked slowly
away, down to and through the arch in the wall.

To Wantele, witness of the little scene, what had
just happened seemed full of a profound and sinister
significance.

As he had heard Jane Oglander utter Lingard's
name, he had told himself that he would have heard
her voice — had it been calling " Dick " — across the
world. But Lingard was deaf to everything, to
everybody, but Athena. He had become her thrall.

With a last muttered word of instruction to the
gardener, Wantele turned and hurried out of the
orchard. He glanced anxiously down each of the
straight walks, and peered through the leafless fruit-
trees. It was clear that Jane had already passed out
of the walled gardens, and that she had taken the
shortest way of escape.

He started in pursuit, his one desire being — in
some ways Wantele was very like a woman in his
dealings with his beloved — to assuage her pain, to
lighten her humiliation. . . .

Suddenly he saw her. She was standing on a lit-
tle pier which jutted rather far out into the lake.
Her slight figure was reflected into the water, now
dotted with yellow leaves, and she was staring down
into the blue, golden-flecked depths. Wantele felt

JANE OGLANDER 205

afraid to call out, so perilously near was she to the
unguarded edge.

He began walking quickly along the path which,
circling round the oval piece of water, led to the
pier, and Jane, looking up, became aware that he
was there.

Without speaking, she turned and made her way
along the rough boards.

Nothing was changed since yesterday, since this
morning, and yet in a sense Wantele felt that
everything was changed. Till now he had been
doubtful as to what she knew — almost of what there
was to know. He distrusted, with reason, his sharp,
intolerable jealousy of Lingard.

He had spent a miserable hour after he had him-
self speeded the two to the Oakhanger. There are
no relations so difficult to probe as the relations of
lovers — even of those who have been and are no
longer lovers.

Jane put out her hand as if they had not met be-
fore that day, and Dick took the poor cold hand in
his and held it tightly for a moment before he
dropped it.

" D'you know what to-day is?" she asked ab-
ruptly. " I hadn't meant to remind you of it, Dick
— dear, kind Dick. To-day is the twenty-fifth of
October, the day my brother died."

He uttered an exclamation of dismay, self-rebuke.
How could he have forgotten? So well had he re-

2o6 JANE OGLANDER

membered the date last year that he had written and
urged Jane to come to Rede Place, and on her re-
fusal to do so he had gone up to London for two or
three days; together they had made the long, the
interminable, journey to the suburban churchyard
where Jack Oglander had been buried.

Wantele's mind went back six years to that mel-
ancholy, that sordid, scene in the prison infirmary.
They had sent the sister away, reassured her, told
her there was a change for the better. And then
suddenly young Oglander had sunk — but he, Wan-
tele, had been there, with him. . . .

She was speaking again, in a low musing tone : —

*' It's so strange " she said, and then amended

her words — " Isn't it strange that death is so mate-
rial, so horribly real a thing? It seems so hard that
there has to be so much fuss. If only one could slip
away into nothingness how much better it would be,
Dick— wouldn't it?"

Her mind swung back to her brother. There
came a gentler, a softer tone in her sad voice.

"I wonder if you remember that you were the
only one who did not bid me rejoice that Jack was
dead. I have never forgotten that. And you were
right, Dick. It was a great misfortune for me that
he died. He would have been out of prison by now

— and we should have been together, abroad

He was so clever, I think we should have been able
to make some kind of life — and you would have

JANE OGLANDER 207

come and stayed with us sometimes But it's

no use talking like that, is it? I know I'm foolish,
unreasonable, to-day, and you are the only person to
whom I ever talk of Jack."

She was putting up her dead brother as a shield
between herself and her distress, and Wantele re-
spected the poor subterfuge.

" I know, I know," he said feelingly.

They walked on in silence for a while, then, " I
think, Dick, that I had better go away."

" No, no! " he cried. " Don't do that, Jane! Be-
lieve me, that would be a very unwise thing to do. I
take it that you and General Lingard " — he brought
out the name of her betrothed with an effort —
" have other joint visits to pay ? "

She shook her head. " I haven't told anybody.
Only the Paches know. He thought he ought to
tell them."

"If you go away, Jane, he will almost certainly
stay on here. It would be a pity for him to do
that," Wantele spoke with studied calmness.

" Yes, I suppose it would," the colour rushed into
her face. " I want to tell you something, Dick.
Hew was very noble about my brother. I told him
about it very soon after we first met one another.

You see we became friends so soon " She

sighed. " Just friends, you know."

Wantele turned and looked into her face with an
indefinable expression of shamed curiosity — an ex-

208 JANE OGLANDER

pression that seemed to ask a thousand questions he
had no right to ask.

** And then he began to write to me," she went on
rather breathlessly, as if answering some inward
questioning of her own rather than of his. " I was
amazed when I received his first letter — it seemed
such a strange thing for him to write to me, and
then he asked if he might come and see me before he
went away."

She waited a moment, and went on, " I was the
only person to whom he wrote while he was away.
He's had a very lonely life, Dick, — no brothers, no
sisters, and his mother died when he was a little
child."

There was a world of anxious apology, of ex-
cuse, underlying her confidences.

When, at last, they went back into the house, they
found General Lingard sitting with his host, and
it was in Richard Maule's presence that Jane made
her request — a request to which Lingard gave eager
assent.

Of course he would go and see Mrs. Kaye, and
bestir himself concerning her son's affairs ! He had
been very much struck by Mrs. Maule's account of
Bayworth Kaye that morning. She had said other
things of him to Lingard, but he naturally made no
allusion to these when discussing his coming inter-
view with Mrs. Kaye.

Athena had told Lingard, with angry scorn, of
the way certain people in the neighbourhood had

JANE OGLANDER 209

talked of her friendship with the young- soldier, and
he had felt that inarticulate rage and disgust which
any decent man would have felt on receiving Ath-
ena's confidences. Lingard's opinion of the world
had altered, and greatly for the worse, since he had
made Mrs. Maule's acquaintance.

CHAPTER XIV

" Opportunity creates a sinner : at least it calls him into
action, and like the warming sun invites the sleeping serpent
from its hole."

The dramas of love, of jealousy, of hatred, which
play so awful a part in human existence, only form
eddies, perhaps it would be more true to say whirl-
pools, on the vast placid current of life.

The owners of Rede Place were not allowed to
forget for long that in General Lingard they were
entertaining a guest who belonged to the world at
large, rather than to them or to himself.

It had been arranged that the next day, the
twenty-sixth of October, Wantele was to take Lin-
gard to a big shoot. Athena, when reminded of
the fact by a casual word the night before, felt curi-
ously pleased. The absence of the two men for a
long day would relieve the strain, and make it pos-
sible for her to have a serious talk with Jane Og-
lander. Somehow, it seemed almost impossible to
do so with Wantele and Lingard always about.

Athena was no coward, and the time had come
when she felt she must discover what her friend
knew, or rather, what her friend suspected — for as
yet there was very little to know. And if Jane sus-
pected the truth — the little, that is, there was to sus-
pect— she must discover what Jane meant to do.

210

JANE OGLANDER 211

The men made an early start, and from one of her
bedroom windows Mrs. Maule watched the dog-cart
spinning down the broad road through the park.
Dick Wantele was driving; Hew Lingard sitting
stiffly, with folded arms, by his side.

At last they turned the corner at the end of the
avenue, and Athena went back to bed with the feel-
ing that it was pleasant to know that she need not
get up for another two hours, and also that, after
her talk with Jane Oglander, she would be free to
do what she liked all day.

As she lay back, feeling a little stupid and drowsy,
for she had taken a dose of chloral the night before,
Athena gave a regretful, kindly thought to Bay-
worth Kaye.

Yes, though no one knew it but herself, the gods
had shown the young man that kindness which is
said to prove their love. His only fault as a lover
— a serious one from Mrs. Maule's point of view —
had been an almost insane jealousy. He would have
taken badly, perhaps very badly, her marriage to
such a man as General Lingard.

It was well for Bayworth, and, in a lesser sense,
well for her also, that he had died in this sad, sud-
den way. Death is the only final, as it is the only
simple, solution of many a painful riddle.

Athena had not allowed the thought of Bayworth
Kaye to trouble her unduly; but she had been un-
comfortably aware that he might remain, for a long
time, a point of danger in her life. She acknowl-

212 JANE OGLANDER

edged that in the matter of this young man she had
been imprudent, but he had come across her at a
moment when she was feehng dull and " under the
weather."

Poor Bay worth! He had taken the whole thing
far too seriously. He had been so young, so ar-
dent, so — so grateful. His death at this juncture
was a relief. Athena paid his memory the tribute
of a sigh.

And then she turned her thoughts to Jane Og-
lander. During the last few years she had had many
proofs of Jane's deep and loyal affection for her-
self; but the type of woman to which Mrs. Maule
belonged can never form any true intimacy with a
member of her own sex.

Jane had always been ignorant of everything that
concerned Athena's real inward life — the vivid, ex-
citing, emotional life, which she lived when away
from Rede Place. Bayworth Kaye had been the one
exception to the wise rule she had made for herself
very soon after her arrival in England.

Jane Oglander, so Athena was quite convinced,
knew nothing of the greatest of the great human
games — had never fallen a victim to that jealous,
compelling passion which plays so tragic a part in
the lives of most of those sentient human beings who
are not absorbed in one of the other master-passions.

For Mrs. Maule had valued Jane's unquestioning
love; she had rested in the knowledge that Jane
believed her to be as spotless a being as herself.

JANE OGLANDER 213

Why, Jane had not even suspected poor Bayworth
Kaye's infatuation! Athena forgot that Jane had
never seen Bayworth and herself together.

But though Mrs. Maule told Jane Oglander noth-
ing of her own intimate concerns, she had taken it
for granted that she knew all Jane's innocent se-
crets. And now, when musing over her coming con-
versation with her friend, she felt a sharp pang of
irritation when she remembered how little Jane had
really trusted her concerning Lingard. Why, she
hadn't even told her of the correspondence between
them! Jane Oglander, Athena was sorry to think
of such a thing of one whom she had always set
apart in her mind as an exception, had been — sly.

Since the night of Jane Oglander's arrival at
Rede Place, the night when Jane had behaved, so
Athena now reminded herself, so queerly, the two
women had never discussed Jane and Lingard' s
engagement — indeed, they hardly ever found them-
selves alone together. This, of course, was Jane's
fault quite as much as hers.

Now at last had come the opportunity to — to
" have it out " with Jane ; to defend herself, if
need be, from any charge of disloyalty.

It took Mrs. Maule a considerable time to find
her friend. Miss Oglander was in none of the
usual living-rooms, neither was she in her own
room or with Richard.

Was it possible that Jane had gone off for the

214 JANE OGLANDER

day to the Small Farm in order to avoid the very
explanation Athena wished to provoke? That was
a disturbing thought.

And then, unexpectedly, she ran Jane to earth in
a corner of the large library which only Dick
Wantele habitually used, and which was at the ex-
treme end of the house, furthest away from Mrs.
Maule's boudoir.

" I've been looking for you everywhere," she
exclaimed. " What made you hide yourself here,
Jane?"

" Dick wanted something copied out of a book,
and I thought I would do it now."

There was a look of fear, of painful constraint,
in Jane Oglander's face; and as she came for-
ward she kept the book she had been holding, a
manual on practical cottage architecture, in her
hand, open.

" There are such heaps of things I want to say
to you, Jane, and somehow we never seem to have
a moment ! "

Jane looked into Athena's face — it was a pen-
etrating, questioning look. Was it possible — per-
haps it was possible — that Athena was speaking
in good faith?

The other hurried on, a little breathlessly: "Of
course I want to hear all about your plans. I know

you mean to be married quietly in London "

She vaguely remembered that Jane had said some-
thing to that effect during their one conversation

JANE OGLANDER 215

together. " But what will you do afterwards ?
Hew is not obliged to take up his new appoint-
ment yet, is he ? "

There was a long pause — and then, " I don't
know exactly what he means to do," Jane answered
in a low voice.

They were both standing before the fireplace;
Jane Oglander was looking straight at Athena, but
Athena's lovely head was bent down.

" Haven't you thought about it ? But I sup-
pose you'll pay some visits first."

There was a touch of sharp envy in Athena
Maule's voice. It was absurd, it was irritating, to
think that Jane, even if only for a short time
longer, would be Hew Lingard's companion, sharer
in his triumphal progress — unless of course some-
thing could bring about the end of their engage-
ment— soon.

" I meant I did not know about his appoint-
ment." In each of the letters he had written to
Jane during the ten days they had been apart,
Hew Lingard had discussed the possibility of his
being offered an immediate appointment, but she
was only now being made aware that the offer had
actually been made.

As a matter of fact, it had not been made.

Jane tried to believe that her ignorance of a
fact so vital to Lingard was not in any way Athe-
na's fault — indeed, that it was nobody's fault ex-
cept perchance her own.

2i6 JANE OGLANDER

" You mean you don't know whether he will ac-
cept what will be offered him? But, Jane, forgive
my interference — he and I have become such
friends — you must make him take it. It would be
a splendid thing, a stepping-stone to something
really big. You'll have to train yourself now to be
a little worldly "

Athena spoke with forced lightness. It would
be dreadful if Jane in her folly made Lingard do
anything which would be irrevocable. " You can't
always live with your head in the clouds, you
know ! "

Jane felt as if the other had struck her; this
flippant, hard-voiced woman was not the Athena
she had always known.

" I don't suppose," said Mrs. Maule, at last look-
ing up, and smiling into Jane's face, " that you've
even made up your mind where you will spend
your honeymoon ? "

She was feeling slightly ashamed, — ashamed and
yet exhilarated by this absurd, make-believe con-
versation.

Jane shut the book she held in her hand, and put
it down.

" Athena," she said quietly, " I did not mean to
tell you yet, but now I think I had better do so. I
am going to break my engagement. I see — of
course I can't help seeing — that it's been a mistake
from the beginning."

" He was not good enough for you, Jane," said

JANE OGLANDER 217

Mrs. Maule impulsively. " What he wants is a
wife who will help him. You did not understand.
I saw that from the first "

Jane went on quickly:

" After all, men — and women, too, I suppose, —
often do make that sort of mistake. It's a good
thing when they find it out in time — as I have
done. But I would rather not talk about it."

She changed the subject abruptly : " I feel
rather worried about Mabel Digby. She's really
quite ill. I thought of lunching there to-day, if
you have no objection."

" Yes, do go there ! Surely you know I always
want you to do just what you like when you're
here?"

Athena's voice sounded oddly loud in her own
ears. It seemed to her as if she had lost control
over its modulations. . . .

As the door of the library closed behind Jane
Oglander, Athena Maule sat down. She felt op-
pressed, almost scared, by this piece of good for-
tune. She had never thought things would be
made so easy for her.

How mistaken she had been in Jane's attitude,
not only to Hew Lingard, but to life ! And how
mistaken Lingard had been! Athena could not
help feeling a certain contempt for him ; but all
men, so she reminded herself, are vain where
women are concerned. They always put a far
higher value on themselves than does the woman

2i8 JANE OGLANDER

on whom they are wasting their pity, their — their
remorse.

Why, Jane had shown herself more than rea-
sonable just now. She had made no stupid " fuss,"
attempted no disagreeable accusations. She hadn't
even cried ! But then, Jane Oglander was just —
Jane; that is a sensible, a thoughtful, to tell truth,
a cold creature! Athena, to be sure, had seen her
moved, terribly so, over that business of her
brother, but all the emotional side of the girl's na-
ture had been exhausted over that sad affair.

What Athena was beginning to long for with all
the strength of her being had now entered the do-
main of immediate possibility.

There would be some disagreeable, difficult mo-
ments to go through before she could become Hew
Lingard's wife. Mrs. Richard Maule, sitting there
in the library of Rede Place, faced that fact with
the cool, calculating courage which was perhaps
her chief asset in the battle of life.

But she was popular, well liked by a large circle
of people; she had little doubt that many of them
would take her part — again she reminded herself
that it Ayould be very difficult for anyone to do
anything else who, knowing her, had ever seen
Richard Maule as he now was. She had heard of
women doing far stranger things than that she
was about to do in order to attain their wish.

She tried to remember the two or three names
Mrs. Stanwood had uttered in a similar connec-

JANE OGLANDER 219

tion — but they were gone, irretrievably gone from
her memory. No matter, the position of a woman
whose marriage has been dissolved is quite other
than that of a divorcee. Little as she really knew
of English sentiment and prejudice, Mrs. Maule
could be sure of that.

Athena's violet eyes grew tender. Hew Lin-
gard respected as well as worshipped her; and
should her dream, the delightful dream which was
now taking such living shape, become reality,
should she, that is, become Lingard's wife, she
would never, never allow him to regret it.

She renewed, and most solemnly, the vow she
had taken two nights ago. Ah! yes indeed — ^her
wild oats were all sown! Athena Lingard would
be a very different woman from Athena Maule.
Besides, as Lingard's wife she would be free of
England for a while.

She remembered vividly the day that he had
casually told her that he expected an appointment
abroad, for it had been the first time she had real-
ised how utterly unsuited Jane was to be Lingard's
wife.

Athena possessed the confident belief in herself
and in her own powers that every beautiful woman
is apt early to acquire in her progress through an
admiring world. Such a wife as herself would be
of immeasurable use to such a man as was Hew
Lingard. Of that she could have no doubt.

Hew was not exactly a man of the world, in

220 JANE OGLANDER

fact he seemed astonishingly indifferent to other
people's opinion. Well, that told two ways. Just
now, it was a good thing that he cared so little
what others might say or think. Instinct told her
that as long as he was at peace with his own con-
science, his own sense of honour, Lingard would
care mighty little what the world said — besides,
the world would have nothing to say. They, she
and Lingard, would have to be careful till the legal
matter was settled — that was all.

During the long hour that she sat alone in the
library of Rede Place, Athena Maule had time to
think of many things, for she was no longer anx-
ious or excited now — everything was going well.
The rest, to such a woman as herself, presented
no real difficulty.

She dwelt with a feeling of exultation on the
thought of the punishment she was going to in-
flict on Richard. She wondered idly whether the
step she was about to take would affect her mar-
riage settlements. They had been splendid — with
none of those tiresome " if and if clauses " that
she was told settlements often contain. Well, that
was a matter of comparatively small consequence.
From what she knew of Lingard, it was unlikely
that he would allow her to continue in receipt of
another man's money. From a practical point of
view it was a pity, of course, that Hew was like
that, but she liked him the better for it.

She could not, as yet, form any very definite

JANE OGLANDER 221

plan of action. There was plenty of time for that
now that Jane was out of the way. She would go
to London — London was very pleasant at this time
of year — and once there she would get one of her
clever friends to recommend her a really good
lawyer.

Constructive thought — thought such as Athena
had now been indulging in for an hour — is a fa-
tiguing mental process. She felt tired, and quite
ready for lunch, the principal meal of her day, when
the gong sounded.

But before going off to her solitary meal, Mrs.
Maule went over to that portion of the library where
were kept several rows of old law books that had
belonged to Dick Wantele's father. She marked
the place where stood a solid volume inscribed, " A
Digest of the Marriage Laws of England."

When she had a quiet hour to spare, and when
no one was likely to see her engaged on the task,
she would take that book down, and study it care-
fully : it doubtless contained information as to sev-
eral matters of which she was as yet ignorant,
and which it now behoved her to know.

CHAPTER XV

". . . that supreme disintegrant, the Tyranny of Love. . . ."

The Small Farm had become dear to Jane during
the long miserable days she had lived through in
the last fortnight. She had gone there whenever
she wanted to escape from the intolerable pain of
seeing Lingard's absorption in Athena Maule.

Each of the familiar rooms of Rede Place now
held for her some bitter, some humiliating associa-
tion. She never took refuge in her own room up-
stairs without remembering the long, intimate talk
with Athena the evening of her arrival when she
had been compelled to reveal more of her inner self
than she had ever done in response to the other
woman's curiously insistent, eager questioning.

Yes, no doubt Athena was right. Hew Lingard
probably regarded a suitable marriage as a necessity
of his career. She, Jane, had misunderstood him
from the very first, proving herself, so she told her-
self with shamed anguish, a romantic fool.

In the region of the emotions there are certain se-
cret ordeals which must be faced in solitude. Hew
Lingard had taught Jane Oglander what love be-
tween a man and woman can come to mean. She
had been ready not only to give all — but to receive

222

JANE OGLANDER 223

all. This being so, she could not bring herself to
endure the marriage of convenience she now be-
lieved to be all he sought of her.

She would have given all the exquisite happiness
of the last two years — happiness the greater and
the more intense because it was so largely bred of
her imagination — to blot out the week she and Lin-
gard had spent together in London. It was during
those days she had learnt to love him in the simple
human way which now made the thought of parting
agony.

Unwittingly Lingard had done her a terrible mis-
chief during those enchanted days. She felt as if
he had stolen her from herself, rifling all the hidden
chambers of her heart. She had given everything
in exchange for what she had believed to be the
great, the sacred, treasure of his love. And now he
was scattering the treasure which she had thought
hers at the feet of another woman who, she believed,
had not sought it and to whom it was dross.

She had heard of such enthralments — a blunderer
had so tried to excuse, to explain to her, her brother
Jack Oglander's crime. Yes, Jack had been mad
about that woman he had killed; that had been the
word used — mad.

Mad? Jane Oglander, walking to the Small
Farm, repeated the word — yes, Lingard had been
made mad by Athena in much the same way as Jack
had been made mad. When Lingard had implored
her to marry him at once, during that hour on The

224 JANE OGLANDER

Hanger, he had really been beseeching her to help
him to escape. She saw that now — and perhaps, had
she loved him less, she would have yielded.

But there are moments when love, though the
most dissembling of the passions, cannot lie. Jane
Oglander, when in her lover's arms, could not ac-
cept as gold the baser metal he, perhaps unknow-
ingly, pressed upon her.

One thing remained to her. Nothing could take
away from her the two years which had gone before.
She had not yet destroyed, she did not feel that she
need be called upon to destroy — until Lingard mar-
ried some other woman — the letters he had written
to her in those two years. She told herself that they
had not been love letters, although to her simple
heart they had seemed strangely like it.

Any day during the past two years she might have
opened a paper containing the news of Lingard's
death. But if that of which she had had so sick a
dread had happened, she would have had something
dear, something intimately secret and sacred, to
bear about with her, locked in the inner shrine of
her heart, for the rest of her life.

The present and the immediate future must be
considered, and, as she had now told Athena of her
decision, they must be considered to-day.

She remembered the many broken engagements
of which she had heard — Jane wondered if those
other women had suffered as she was suffering
now.

JANE OGLANDER 225

The one thing she felt she could not do would be
to go back to that little house in London, which to
her would ever be filled with Hew Lingard — not
Lingard as he was now, gloomy, preoccupied, avoid-
ing her presence and yet painfully eager to obey
her slightest wish — but Lingard the happy, the mas-
terful lover who yet had been so tender, so patient
with her.

What did other people do when they broke off an
engagement or — or were jilted?

Jane tried to remember what she had heard such
people did. One girl had been sent on a voyage
round the world — another had refused to leave
home, she had stayed and " faced it out."

Fortunately she was not compelled to consider
either of these alternatives. She was mistress of her
own life, and she had already learnt the hard les-
son that to deaden pain — heart pain — there is noth-
ing like incessant, unending work. She made up
her mind to go to another part of London, and start
once more the salvage work which lay on the edge
of the great sea strewn with human wreckage.

But before Jane could do this, she must put an end
to what had become, certainly to herself, and prob-
ably to Lingard also, an intolerable mockery.

Jane found Mabel Digby in bed; and the girl,
though but little given to caresses, drew her down
and laid her head on the other's kind breast.

" Yes, it's true," she said, " I'm ill, and I don't

226 JANE OGLANDER

know what's the matter with me " — she lifted her
face and pushed her hair back from her forehead
with a tired gesture. " No, I won't lie. I don't
see why I should pretend — with you! I'm ill, Jane,
because Bayworth Kaye is dead. I lie here think-
ing— thinking only of Bayworth. It's all so horrible
— I mean that he should have died when he was so
unhappy, I burnt all his letters the day he went
away. You can't think how sorry I am now that I
did that, Jane. There was nothing in them, they
weren't love letters — at least I don't think so "

Jane gave a muffled cry of pain.

" Jane, come nearer, and I'll tell you something
which may make you think a little less poorly of
me. Bayworth did speak to me three years ago,
before he first went to India. I have never told
anybody — not even his mother, though she was al-
ways trying to find out. And when he came back
I was so happy — just for a few days — and then,
almost at once, he fell into Athena's clutches "

And as she saw the other make a restless move-
ment of recoil she added, " I suppose you don't be-
lieve me, but it's true — horribly true. I saw it all
happening, but I could do nothing except feel mis-
erable. I used to think — poor fool that I was —
that everything would come right at the last. I
thought she would get tired of him, and that I
would get what was left." She broke into hard
sobs. " She did get tired of him — but too late —
too late for me ! "

JANE OGLANDER 227

" I wonder, Mabel, whether you would like me to
come and stay with you for a few days,"

Jane felt that the way was at last opening before
her. The grief, the angry pain, of the poor child
now lying here before her soothed her sore heart,

" Jane ! What an unselfish angel you are ! "
Mabel did not see the other's almost vehement ges-
ture of denial, "Of course it would be the greatest
comfort to have you here ! "

Then, as the girl was nervously afraid that Jane
should imagine her unwilling to speak of her en-
gagement : " If you come here, I suppose General
Lingard will leave Rede Place ? "

" Yes, I suppose he will,"

Mabel looked up. It seemed to her as if her own
suffering was reflected, intensified, in Jane Og-
lander's sad eyes.

If only she could stay on here now to-day — and
not see Lingard again! Such was Jane Oglander's
thought, but she lacked the cruel courage, Richard
Maule would be hurt and angered were she thus
to disappear suddenly. More, it might even make
him suspect the truth — the truth as to Lingard's
infatuation — of which Jane thought him ignorant.

And so, when the dusk began to fall, she got up.
Athena would be annoyed if she were not back by
tea-time. Athena disliked very much being alone
with her husband,

" Good-bye, Mabel. You'll see me some time to-
morrow."

228 JANE OGLANDER

She hurried along the path through the trees and
the bushes now stripped of leaves. She was op-
pressed, haunted, by the thought of Bayworth Kaye.
Could Mabel Digby's story be true? Was Athena
Maule a cruel, devouring Circe, lacking mercy, hon-
our, shame?

Jane could not think so. To believe what Mabel
Digby had told her would have required a readjust-
ment of her whole view and conception of a nature
and character she had humbly admired and loved
from early girlhood. Jane had always unquestion-
ingly accepted Athena's account of the humiliations
and the trials which befall beauty bereft of the care
and devotion of beauty's natural protector. Mrs.
Maule, so Jane believed, made an unwilling conquest
of almost every man who came within her magic
ring, but till now Jane had never seen the spell
working. . . .

When more than halfway to the house, she heard
the sound of wheels. Dick Wantele and Hew Lin-
gard were coming back an hour sooner than they
were expected.

She was glad it was so dark — but for that they
must see her. She waited till the dogcart flashed
past within two or three yards of the path on which
she stood.

It looked as if Wantele was urging his eager
horse, already within sight of his stable, to go faster.

Jane drew further into the underwood. She saw,
as if the scene were actually before her, what would

JANE OGLANDER 229

happen if she continued her way on into the house.

Tea was now served in Athena's boudoir instead
of in the Greek Room. There the four of them,
Jane, Athena, and the two men, came together each
afternoon. Dick never stayed long. After a few
minutes he would go to Richard, leaving the others
— a strange unnatural trio, — till Jane also escaped,
sometimes to sit with her host, oftener to some
place where she could be alone.

This was what happened every day ; and now she
suddenly made up her mind that it should never
happen again. It was her heart, her mind, which
was sick and tired, not her body. It would do her
good to go on walking till the time came when she
could creep quietly into the house and go up to her
room. Athena and Hew would think, if they
thought of her at all, that she had stayed on for tea
with Mabel Digby. . . .

All at once, out of the darkness, she heard a fa-
miliar voice : " Hullo, Jane ! You've managed to
travel a good way in ten minutes. I don't think it
is ten minutes since we drove by. I thought I'd
lost you! "

It was Dick Wantele, a little breathless, a little
excited by the chase.

" Then you saw I was there? "

" I always see you, Jane."

He spoke quite lightly, but Jane Oglander felt
touched — horribly touched. The tears came into
her eyes for the first time that day. Dick, and

230 JANE OGLANDER

Dick's friendship, was all that remained to her —
now.

" Did it all go off quite right? Had you a good
time? " she made a valiant effort to control herself.

"A very good time! The duchess is most anx-
ious General Lingard should go on straight there
after leaving here."

She felt the underlying, criticising dislike of Lin-
gard in the tone in which Wantele uttered the words,
and she felt troubled.

Suddenly she stumbled, and her companion, put-
ting out his thin hand, grasped her arm.

"Jane," he said quickly, "wait a moment! It's
not cold. I want to say something to you, and I'd
rather say it out here, where no one can interrupt us,
than indoors."

He took his hand from her arm. " I trust to your
— your kindness not to take offence."

" I shan't be offended, but — but must you speak
to me, Dick? I've been so grateful to you for not
speaking."

" Yes, I must speak. It's been cowardly of me
not to do it before. It's about Lingard, Jane."

He waited a moment, but she made no movement.

" We are both agreed — at least, I suppose we are
both agreed — that Lingard is taking the sort of
adulation, the — the rather ridiculous homage, to
which he is now being subjected, very well. But I

don't think you realise, my dear, " he waited a

moment; never had he called Jane Oglander his

JANE OGLANDER 231

dear before — " the effect on the real man — the ex-
traordinarily disturbing, upsetting effect such an ex-
perience as that he is now going through is bound
to have on any human being."

" I don't quite understand what you mean," her
voice faltered ; and yet what he said brought vague
comfort with it.

" Well, it isn't very easy to explain. But I can't
help thinking that one ought to be very merciful to
a man who's being subjected to such an ordeal.
Athena hasn't made it easier," he tried, and failed,
to make the mention of his cousin's wife casual,
easy. " Doubtless, without meaning it, Athena in-
tensifies everything — she never allows Lingard to
forget for a moment that he is a great man — a hero.
You must remember that we had ten days — ten days
of incessant glorification of Lingard before you ar-
rived. He took it awfully well, but "

" I do know what you mean," she said painfully.

" Yet surely " she stopped abruptly. Not even

with Wantele could she discuss — not even with him
could she admit Hew Lingard's attitude to Athena
Maule.

" I want to tell you — perhaps I ought to have told
you before, Dick, — that I've made up my mind to
end my engagement."

They walked on in silence for a few moments.

" I suppose you realise what the effect of your
doing this now will be on Lingard ? " he said.
" Mind you, Jane, I don't say that he doesn't deserve

232 JANE OGLANDER

it! But I do say that if you do this you will drive

him straight to the devil " he waited a moment,

but she made no answer to his words.

"Have you told Athena?" Wantele was
ashamed of the question, but burning curiosity and
jealous pain impelled him to ask it.

" Yes, I told her this morning. But, Dick, I want
to tell you, I think I ought to tell you, that I

don't " she hesitated, hardly knowing how to

frame her sentence — " I don't blame Athena. I'm
sure she couldn't help what's happened."

" You press very hardly on Lingard, Jane."

He spoke with a terrible irony, but Jane did not
understand.

" No, no ! " she cried, distressed. " I press hard
on nobody, least of all on Hew."

CHAPTER XVI

" Quand le coeur reste fidele, les vilenies du corps sont peu
de chose. Quand le coeur a trahi, le reste n'est plus rien."

Athena, sitting alone in the boudoir, heard the
return of the two men; but she waited in vain for
Lingard to come to her, as he always did come
to her, with that blind longing for her presence
which he was only now, with dawning conscious-
ness, beginning to resist.

To-night instinct, the wise instinct which always
stood her in good stead in all her dealings with
men, warned her against seeking him out.

Mrs. Maule had no wish to make Lingard either
an unwilling or even a willing accomplice in the
scheme which was to result in their ultimate happi-
ness. She had gone quite as far as she dared to
go with him the night before. Treachery is one
of the few burdens which a human being can bear
better alone than in company.

Athena realised that Lingard now regarded his
violent, unreasoning attraction to herself as a thing
of which to be mortally ashamed. But she was con-
vinced that, once his engagement to Jane Oglander
was at an end, he would ** let himself go," espe-
cially if he was convinced that she, Athena, had
been blameless.

233

234 JANE OGLANDER

And her instinct served her truly. Lingard, in
spite of, or perhaps because of, the long day spent
away from Rede Place, was in no mood for a re-
newal of the sentimental dalliance to which Athena
had accustomed him.

What had happened — the quick exchange of
words, his echo of Mrs. Maule's longing for free-
dom from a tie which she had led him to believe
had ever lacked reality, had brought him, and
roughly, to his bearings.

The evening which had followed, spent in com-
pany with the two women — the woman to whom
he owed allegiance, and whom he had held but a few
hours before in his arms, and that other woman
who had provoked the unreal words of which he
was now ashamed, had contained some of the most
odious moments of his life.

He had hailed with intense relief the engage-
ment which took him away for a whole day; and
on his return he had gone straight to the sitting-
room set apart for his use, his supposed work,
and where, after the first two days of his stay
under Richard Maule's roof, he had spent so little
of his time.

The rather elaborate apparatus connected with
the book he was engaged in writing, filled him with
contempt for himself. There were the maps, the
books, the reports of his staff, his own rough notes,
and — in a locked despatch-box — the long diary-

JANE OGLANDER 235

letters he had written to Jane Oglander during the
course of the Expedition.

The man who is all man, whose nature lacks,
that is, any admixture of femininity, is almost al-
ways without the dangerous gift of self-analysis.
Such a man was Hew Lingard.

All through his life he had always known ex-
actly what he wanted, and when denied he had
suffered as suffers a child, with a dumb and hope-
less anger. It was this want of knowledge of him-
self that had ever made him ready to embark
blindly in those perilous adventures of the soul in
which the body plays so great a sub-conscious part.

Now, for the first time in his life, Lingard did
not know what he wanted, and the state in which
he found himself induced a terrible and humiliat-
ing disquietude.

His was the miserable state of mind of a man
who finds himself on the point of becoming un-
faithful to a wife who is still loved. Jane Og-
lander, even now, seemed in a most intimate sense
part of himself. When he had seen her the first
time — it had been in summer, in a garden — he had
experienced the strange sensation that he had at
last found the woman for whom he had been al-
ways seeking, and whom he had always known to
be somewhere waiting, could he but find her.

Almost at once he had told Jane that he loved
her, and almost, even then, had he convinced her

236 JANE OGLANDER

that it was true. He had not tried to bind her by
any formal engagement, and he had kept to the
spirit as well as to the letter of the law. The long
diary-letters which he had written to her day by
day, and which had reached her at such irregular
intervals, were not in any obvious sense love-letters.

He had felt that wherever he was she was there
too, and sometimes, when he was in danger, and
he was often in danger during those two years, the
sense of Jane Oglander's spiritual nearness became
curiously intensified. Now that they were to-
gether, under the same roof, she often seemed in-
finitely remote.

Could he now have analysed his own emotions —
which, perhaps fortunately for himself, he was in-
capable of doing — he would have known that his
chance of being faithful to Jane would have been
increased rather than decreased had they not spent
together that week in London.

He had come to Rede Place in a state of spiritual
and physical exaltation which had made him pecu-
liarly susceptible to any and every emotion, and
for a time he had believed the feeling he was lav-
ishing on Athena Maule to be pity — a passion of
pity for one who had been most piteously used by
fate.

The physical exercise of the day's shooting,
spent in a place entirely lacking the emotional at-
mosphere induced by Athena, had restored Lin-
gard's sense of perspective. With a rather angry

JANE OGLANDER 237

discomfiture he realised that he had become afraid
of Mrs. Maule and of her power over him. For
the first time since he had l<;nown her he had been
free of Athena, and then, as he and Dick Wantele
got nearer and nearer to Rede Place, it had almost
seemed as if she were beckoning to him, and he
had longed to respond to her call. . . .

It had required a strong effort of will on his
part to go straight upstairs instead of to the room
where he knew her to be.

For the first time in his life Lingard did not
know what he wanted, or, rather, he was griev-
ously aware that one side of his nature was im-
periously demanding of him something he was de-
termined not to grant. Last night he had thrown
a sop to the ravening, hungry beast, but that, so
he now swore to himself, should not happen again.

It was seven o'clock when Athena heard a key
being turned in the lock of the Garden Room, and
her eyes quickly sought the place where her own
key was always kept. It was in its place; Lin-
gard always returned it with scrupulous care im-
mediately after having used it.

Then it must be Dick Wantele who was coming
into the house. She wondered where he had been
— perhaps to the Small Farm to fetch Jane Og-
lander.

What a fool Dick was! And yet — and yet not
such a fool after all. Dick, if he were patient —
Athena smiled a little to herself — and he cer-

238 JANE OGLANDER

tainly would be patient, might yet be granted the
wish of his heart. Jane Oglander's marriage to
Dick Wantele, so Airs. Maule now admitted to
herself, would be a most excellent thing for
them all.

Yes — the two she would fain see become lovers
had come in together; she could hear their voices
in the corridor. And then, to her surprise, the door
opened, and Wantele came in alone.

Athena felt suddenly afraid — afraid and uncom-
fortable. She told herself angrily that her nerves
were playing her odious tricks, for as Dick came
towards her she had the sensation, almost the
knowledge, that he longed to strike her, and it
was a very odd, a very unpleasant, sensation.

He came up close to her. " You know that Jane
Oglander intends to break her engagement ? " he
said abruptly, and there was an angry, a menacing
expression on his face.

Athena regained complete possession of herself.
She felt quite cool, ready to parry any attack.

" Yes," she said quietly ; " Jane told me this
morning. I was surprised, but — not sorry, Dick."

He made no answer, dealt her none of those
quick, sarcastic retorts of which he was master.
She looked at him fixedly. He had no business to
come in and speak to her like that !

" No one who knows and — and likes them both
can think them suited to one another. You know
that as well as I do, Dick."

JANE OGLANDER 239

" I deny it absolutely," he cried, " and even if it
were true I shouldn't care! Our business in this
matter — yours and mine — is to stand by Jane. I
take it that you won't deny that Jane loves Lin-
gard ? " And then he went on, without waiting
for her assent : *' Do you remember the letter she
wrote to you — the letter you showed me? That
showed how Jane felt — how she now feels."

Her lips framed a sentence in answer, but she
changed her mind and did not utter it. There was
no object in making Dick angry, angrier than he
already was ; for Athena was well aware that Wan-
tele was very, very angry with her.

" And what do you think we can do? " she said
slowly.

" Look here, Athena." He tried to make his
voice pleasant, conciliating — and he actually suc-
ceeded. Then he wasn't angry, she thought, after
all. " This matter is much too serious for you and
me to fence about it. I asked you a few days ago
to go away — I ask it of you again. After all, what
you are doing now can lead to nothing. Lingard
must give you but very poor sport, and what is
sport to you — eh, what, Athena ? "

She remained silent, listening to him with an odd
look on her face.

He ventured further : " I feel sure that you
had no idea that the matter would become serious,
and I agree that if Jane were a different sort of
woman she would understand "

240 JANE OGLANDER

" Understand what ? " she said haughtily. " Are
you accusing me of breaking off Jane's engagement ?
I did not think, Dick, that even your dishke of me
could go so far. Till she told me this morning, I
had no idea she thought of doing such a thing."

Wantele shrugged his shoulders, but he was de-
tennined not to lose his temper.

" I don't accuse you," he said slowly, " and I
don't wish to be unfair. We'll put it in another
way, Athena. Lingard came — saw — was con-
quered! It's no use our discussing it at this time
of day. Still less is it any use for you to try to
deny it; you and I both know what happened. I
think — nay, I'm quite sure — that if you were to go
away, everything would come right between these
two people."

" And do you really wish everything to come
right between Hew Lingard and Jane Oglander?"

Athena looked at the man standing before her
in a very singular manner. Her voice was charged
with significance.

He met her challenging look quite coolly. " Yes,
I do wish it to come right," he said, " because I be-
lieve that it would be for Jane's ultimate happiness.
Come, Athena, make an effort ! "

He spoke good-humouredly, as a grown-up per-
son speaks to a spoilt child, and a cruel little devil
entered into Mrs. Maule's mind.

" Isn't it funny," she said lightly, " how Jane the

JANE OGLANDER 241

Good, and I, Athena the Bad, always attract the
same man? They don't always like us at the same

time, but "

She stopped speaking, for Dick Wantele had
turned and left the room, leaving the door open
behind him, a thing he very seldom did.

CHAPTER XVII

" Nous devrions baiser les pantoufles de certaines femmes
du cote ou les pantoufles touchent a la terre, car en dedans ce
serait tout au plus digne des anges."

The long day came to an end at last. Jane felt
a sense of almost physical relief in the knowl-
edge that to-morrow night she would no longer
be there, and yet she had not spoken of her deci-
sion to the others.

For Athena Matile the day was not yet over.
She waited till the house was sunk into darkness
and stillness, and then, dismissing her maid, she
put on a dressing-gown and went downstairs to
the library.

The book she had mentally marked down that
morning was found by her in a moment; but in-
stead of looking at it there she took it to her
boudoir. It was possible that Wantele — Wantele
who had been so rude and unkind to her this aft-
ernoon— might, like herself, feel wakeful, and come
down to the library.

With the heavy old law book in her arms, she
made her way through the now dark corridor which
ran the whole length of Rede Place till she reached
her own sitting-room, and there, before turning up
the light, she locked the door.

242

JANE OGLANDER 243

Then she sat down, and drawing forward a Httle
table she spread the book out open before her.

The dying wood fire suddenly burst into flame;
Athena looked round her. She wondered if she
would ever have so pretty a room again.

There was no hurry; she knew all that it was
really necessary for her to know, thanks to Maud
Stanwood's idle words.

Maud Stanwood? What would Maud Stanwood
say of her when she heard what Mrs. Maule was
about to do? So wondering, Athena suddenly
made up her mind that there would be no necessity
for her to go on knowing that lady. A woman
who talked as Maud Stanwood talked would be
no friend for General Lingard's wife!

The important thing — the one thing she must
find out, and that this book would doubtless tell
her — was how long a period must elapse after the
dissolution of her marriage to Richard Maule be-
fore any second marriage contracted by her would
be legal. She was aware that after a divorce a
full six months must elapse between the Nisi and
the Absolute; also that it was actually left to the
good feeling of the offended party — that was very
unfair — as to whether the decree should be made
absolute at all.

Athena felt a tremor of fear. It would indeed
be an awful thing if she put it into Richard's power
to leave her in the disagreeable, the ridiculous, po-
sition of being neither married nor single.

244 JANE OGLANDER

But thanks to the excellent index of this useful
work on the marriage laws of England, it only
took Mrs. Maule a very few moments to discover
that in this important matter her fear was quite
groundless. Once judgment was given — once, that
is, a marriage was dissolved — there was no im-
pediment to an immediate remarriage on the part
of the injured party.

She looked up and gave a long, unconscious sigh
of relief. There had been a secret, unacknowledged
terror in her heart, that she might find, now at the
last moment, some hidden snag.

Sitting back in her straight, carved Italian chair,
she began to make a mental list of her large circle
of acquaintances. Which of them would give her
shelter during the weeks, nay the months, that must
perhaps elapse before she would be free?

Mrs. Maule had but one intimate friend — that
friend was Jane Oglander. She had little doubt
that as soon as the painful business of the engage-
ment was over, she and Jane would return to their
old terms of unquestioning affection.

What a pity it was that Hew Lingard's rather
absurd conscience and his — well, his sense of deli-
cacy, would make any arrangement with Jane im-
possible! However, she knew several good-na-
tured women who might help her through such a
pass — especially if she could venture to whisper
the truth as to what the future held for her. . . .

But there were certain other facts it would be

JANE OGLANDER 245

well for her to know before taking so important
a step as that of consulting- a lawyer. Athena
Maule did not believe in trusting people too much.

Bending once more over the table, she set her-
self seriously to study the sense of the dry and yet
very clearly expressed chapter containing the in-
formation she sought.

And then, as she read on, slowly mastering the
legal phraseology, conning over the cases quoted
in support of each assertion, it gradually became
horribly, piteously plain to her that if her husband
cared to defend the suit, she had but a very poor
chance of obtaining what this work so rightly styled
" relief."

The knowledge brought with it a terrible feeling
of revolt and of despair to Athena Maule.

She pushed the book away, then got up and
stared into a small Venetian looking-glass. She
was frightened by what she saw there; the shock
of her discovery had drained all the colour from
her face, and, for the moment, destroyed her youth.

She turned away from the mirror with a feeling
of sick disgust. Her face, as reflected there, actu-
ally reminded her of Richard's face. It was ab-
surd, disquieting, that such a notion should ever
come into her mind, and it showed the state in
which her nerves must be.

She looked round her fearfully. The room on
which she had wasted a regretful thought had be-
come an airless cage in which she would have to

246 JANE OGLANDER

spend all that remained to her of young life and of
the wonderful beauty which had, so she now told
herself bitterly, brought her so little happiness.

She had actually believed — how Richard would
grin if he knew it ! — that if she only could make up
her mind to a certain amount of " scandal " and
" publicity," she could free herself of him. How
could she have supposed that the law — a law
framed and devised by men — would put such a
power in a woman's hand? . . .

And yet — and yet it was still true that nothing
but Richard's will stood between herself and com-
plete, honourable freedom — ^between her and the
man who had in his gift everything that she longed
for and believed herself specially fitted by nature to
possess.

So much, and surely it was a great deal, the book
which was still lying open on the little table made
quite clear. If only Richard Maule could be
brought to that state of mind in which he would
consent to be merciful and leave his wife's suit un-
defended, all would yet go well.

Athena sat down again and began to concentrate
her mind intensely.

How could she bend, coerce Richard to her will ?
— that was the formidable problem which was now I
presented to her, and she set herself to consider
it from every point of view.

Mrs. Maule was afraid of her husband — it was
an instinctive, involuntary fear; her whole being

JANE OGLANDER 247

shrank from him with a dreadful aversion. When
he had been hale and strong, adoring her with the
rather absurd ardour of adoration a middle-aged
man so often lavishes on a young wife, she had de-
spised him. Now that he was stricken, old, and
feeble, he inspired her with terror.

It had amused her to deceive him when he had
been the doting, lover-like husband, in days which
seemed to belong to another life; but now, when
his sunken eyes gleamed as they always gleamed
when staring into hers, seeming full of a cruel
knowledge of the pardonable weaknesses into which
her heart betrayed her, then her body as well as
her spirit quailed.

Suddenly a great light came into the dark cham-
ber of her mind. Athena Maule saw in a moment
a way in which the problem might be solved. How
amazing that she had not thought of it yesterday
— even this morning!

Jane Oglander should be her advocate with Rich-
ard. Richard would do for Jane what he would
do for no one else. That had been proved many
times. To take a recent instance — how harshly he
had always resisted his wife's wish to ask people
to Rede Place! But when General Lingard had
come into the neighbourhood, it was Richard who
had suggested that Jane Oglander's lover should
be bidden to stay, and to stay a long time.

Athena's face became flushed, fired with hope,
with energy. She had been foolish to be so fright-

248 JANE OGLANDER

ened. How fortunate it was that Jane had spoken
to her — had told her of her intention to break the
fooHsh engagement with Lingard! It made every-
thing quite easy.

She shut the book — the sinister old book which
had given her so awful a shock.

Why not go up and see Jane now — at once ? It
was still early, not much after midnight. Athena
glanced at the tiny clock which had played its little
part just before Jane's arrival at Rede Place in pro-
voking Hew Lingard's avowal of — of weakness.
Yes, it was only ten minutes past twelve. Jane
was probably wide awake still.

Athena went to the library and carefully put
back the volume in its place among the other legal
books which had belonged to Wantele's father.
Then she made her way, in the deep, still darkness,
to the door of Jane Oglander's room. Knocking
lightly, and without waiting for an answer, she
walked in.

In old days this room had been known as " the
White Room," now it went by the name of " Miss
Oglander's Room." Only Jane Oglander ever occu-
pied it.

Jane was asleep — sleeping more soundly than
she had done for many days, but as the door of
her room opened she woke, and sitting up turned
on, with an instinctive gesture, the electric light
which swung over her bed.

Athena came quickly across the room. She was

JANE OGLANDER 249

wearing a rather bright blue silk wrapper, and her
graceful form made a patch of brilliant colour
against the varying whitenesses of the walls, of the
curtains, and of the rugs which covered the floor.

" I couldn't get to sleep," Athena's voice shook
with excitement and emotion, for she was going to
take a great risk — to stake her whole future life on
one throw. " Somehow I guessed you were awake,
like me."

Jane looked at Athena without speaking ; she was
telling herself that Hew could not help being en-
thralled— that no man could have helped it. She
had never seen her friend look as lovely as she
looked to-night ; and there was a pathetic, a very ap-
pealing expression on the beautiful face now bend-
ing over her.

Mrs. Maule kissed Jane Oglander.

Then she straightened herself,

" I can't sleep because I keep thinking of all you
told me this morning," she said at last. " I know
you don't want to talk about it, and yet — and yet I
feel I must tell you that what you told me is making
me wretched, Jane. Are you sure that you really
wish to break off your engagement ? "

Jane was very pale ; she was spent with suffering,
and yet, as Athena saw with a pang of envy, she
looked very young; her fair hair lay in two long
thick plaits, one on each side of her face. It was
that perhaps which made her look so young, so
placid — so defenceless.

250 JANE OGLANDER

<(

It seems to me the only thing I can do," she
spoke in a very low voice, but to the woman listen-
ing she seemed irritatingly calm.

Athena climbed on to Jane's bed, as she had so
often done in the days when she and Jane happened
to be at Rede Place together — days which had come
far oftener four and five years ago than recently.

It hurt Jane to see Athena there. The contrast
between the past and the present cut so shrewdly.
She did not wish to judge her friend — or rather she
did judge her, and very leniently.

Athena could not help what had happened. Of
that Jane felt sure. But still Athena must know
the truth — she could not but be aware of the effect
she had had on Lingard ; she must know that with-
out meaning it she had witched his heart away.

But whatever Athena knew or did not know, any
allusion to what had happened would be degrading
to them both. Certain things slumber when left in
peace; they leap into life if once discussed. Jane
Oglander believed in the honour of the man she
loved. Hew would go away, and in time he would
batten down, fight and conquer his infatuation for
Mrs. Maule.

"Of course I wish to break my engagement. But
I would rather not talk about it," she said, at last.

" But I must talk about it ! " cried Athena desper-
ately. " You don't realise how I feel, Jane, how —
how miserable, how ashamed I am about it all!
Of course I know how you must be hating me."

JANE OGLANDER 251

An expression of anguish came over the younger
woman's face. She beHeved her friend. But deep
in her heart was breathed the inarticulate prayer:
" Oh God, do not let her mention Hew — do not let
her speak of Hew ! "

Athena suddenly covered her face with her hands.
" Oh, Jane, I could not help it," she wailed, in her
low, vibrating voice. " Oh, Jane, tell me that you
know I could not help it ! "

" I know you could not help it," repeated Jane
mechanically.

She was being tortured, — tortured with a singular
refinement of cruelty. But even now she did not
blame Athena. Athena had meant kindly by her in
coming here to-night. But oh ! if she would only go
away. It was agony to Jane to see her there.

" He respects you ! " whispered Mrs. Maule, lean-
ing forward. " He admires you ! He esteems you !
Oh, Jane, I should feel proud if any man spoke of
me as he speaks of you "

But Jane did not feel proud. Jane felt humiliated
to the dust. During the many miserable hours she
had spent in the last fortnight, she had been spared
the hateful suspicion that Hew Lingard ever spoke
of her to Athena Maule.

And indeed Lingard had never so spoken, yet the
strange thing was that Athena, when uttering those
lying words, half believed them to be true. In the
first days of her acquaintance with Lingard, she had
herself said many kind, warm, affectionate things of

252 JANE OGLANDER

Jane Oglander, to which he had perforce assented.
It now pleased her to imagine, and even more to
say, that it was he who had spotcen those words of
praise, of liking, of warm but unlover-like affec-
tion. . . .

" If you only knew how he feels," she went on
rapidly, "you would feel sorry for him, Jane,
deeply sorry ; not, as you have a right to feel, angry
— angry both with him and with me ! I'm afraid —
I know, that often he feels wretched — horribly
wretched about it all."

" I am very sorry," said Jane Oglander in a low

voice, " sorry, not — not angry, Athena " and

then she stopped short.

" Sorry " seemed a poor, inadequate word, but it
was the only word she could find. Her heart was
wrung with sorrow, with unavailing, useless sorrow
for both these unhappy people, as well as for herself.
Judging them by what she would have felt had she
been either of them, she believed them to be very
miserable.

Athena was now huddled up on the bed. She was
crying bitterly, her face hidden in her hands, the
tears trickling through the fingers. She was dread-
fully, dreadfully sorry for herself.

Jane Oglander could not see anyone as unhappy
and as abased as she believed her friend to be feel-
ing, and make no attempt at consolation. Bending
forward, she put out her arms and gathered to her

JANE OGLANDER 253

the slender rounded shoulders, the beautiful dark
head.

"If only something could be done," she whis-
pered, " if only there was a way out, Athena! "

Athena Maule raised her tear-stained face. Her
moment had at last come.

" There is a way out," she said slowly, impres-
sively.

She put the palms of her hands on the other wom-
an's breast — " Tell me, Jane, would it make you
very unhappy, would you ever be able to forgive me
— if I married Hew Lingard? "

Jane looked at her with troubled eyes. " I don't
understand," she faltered. " Do you mean when — '
when Richard is dead, Athena ? "

" No. Of course I don't mean that ! What a
horrible idea! But, Jane, there is a chance that I
may become free. It is difficult to explain, but you
may believe me when I tell you that if Richard were
a different kind of man, if he was noble, if he
was high-minded, as you are noble and high-
minded " Jane shook her head.

" Yes, you are — you are What was I say-
ing? Yes: if Richard were different he could have
given me my freedom long ago, and our marriage
could be dissolved even now."

As the younger woman made no movement, said
no word, only went on looking at her in puzzled
silence, Athena drew herself out of Jane's arms,

254 JANE OGLANDER

and there came a look of impatience over her
face.

" You are not a child ! Surely you know what I
mean, Jane? You must have heard of marriages
being annulled? Richard has kept me tied to him
all these years — years that I might have been free."

And, again, the strange thing was that Athena
Maule, as she said those words, believed them —
with certain mental reservations — to be true. It
was certainly true that for the last eight years she,
a passionate, living woman, had been tied to death
in life.

She would have been shocked, angered, had any
still small voice reminded her that the scheme she
was now determined to carry through was a new
scheme, one that she had never considered seriously
till now, though she had told the lie which was the
keystone of her scheme so often that she had at last
begun to believe it must be true.

" Oh, Jane! " she cried, and then she slipped ofif
the bed and threw herself on her knees, " Oh, Jane,
there is only one person in the world to whom Rich-
ard will ever listen No, I'm wrong — there are

two — there's Dick as well as you. But Dick" — a
look of hatred for a moment convulsed her face —
" Dick loathes me," she said slowly, " even more
than Richard does," and this was true.

" You, Jane, are my only hope — mine and Hew's
only hope "

" Do you mean," said Jane slowly, " that you

JANE OGLANDER 255

want me to speak to Richard, Athena, — ^to suggest
his taking this step? "

For the first time Jane Oglander felt a touch of
physical repulsion from Athena. It was a curious
sensation, and one which troubled her exceedingly.

"Richard would have to do nothing — nothing!
Simply leave my suit undefended. And if you
could bring yourself to speak to him, Jane, I hon-
estly believe that he might do now what he ought
to have done long ago — release me. Nothing can
give me back the years — the long miserable years I
have spent with him, but I should at least have the
future "

She looked furtively at Jane. It would be so much
more — well, comfortable, if she and Lingard could
count on Jane's approval, on her blessing, as it were.

Jane Oglander lay back and turned her face away,
to the wall. Athena, with remarkable self-control,
stilled her eager, impulsive tongue. But the mo-
ments of waiting seemed very long.

At last Jane turned and once more sat up. She
had made up her mind that it was her duty — her
duty, not only to Athena, but also to Hew Lingard,
— to do this difficult, this repulsive thing which was
being required of her.

" I will speak to Richard to-morrow, Athena —
but if he is shocked, if he is hurt by what I shall
say to him — and I fear he will be both — you must
not expect me ever to come back to Rede Place."

Mrs. Maule gave a little cry. It was only now

256 JANE OGLANDER

that she reahsed how doubtful she had been of suc-
cess. She might have known Jane better. Jane had
always been her one loyal friend. Athena was fond
of the word " loyal."

'* Oh, Jane," she said humbly, " I — I don't know
how to thank you. Will you mind very much ? "

" You mustn't be surprised if I fail," Jane said
slowly.

Athena again sank on to her knees. But all the
humility had gone from the voice in which she ut-
tered her words. " Oh, but you mustn't fail, Jane !
It would kill me." She hesitated — " You will be
very careful what you say to Richard? You will
not — you need not mention "

Jane put out her hand with a quick gesture as if to
ward off the name Athena was about to utter.

" No, no," she cried vehemently, and it was the
first time she had spoken with any strength in her
tones. " You need not be afraid. Of course I shall
mention no one — I think you can trust me, Athena."

CHAPTER XVIII

" II y a des hommes qu'on trompe, et d'autres qu'on trahit, en

accomplissant le meme acte."

Richard Maule heard the door of his bedroom
close behind Jane Oglander.

He had been so ailing the last day or two that he
had been obliged to stay upstairs with Dick's com-
panionship as his only solace, and his cousin had
persuaded him to say good-bye to Jane there.

She was only going as far as the Small Farm, to
look after Mabel Digby who was ill. She would
still be at Rede Place every day, but she was old-
fashioned and punctilious ; she did not wish to leave
Mr. Maule's house without thanking him for his
hospitality, not only to herself but to General Lin-
gard, who had been asked there for her sake.

She had come upstairs about six, already dressed
in her outdoor things, and Dick had left her for a
few moments with Richard in order that she might
say good-bye.

The few moments had prolonged themselves into
half an hour, only half an hour, though the time had
seemed a great deal longer to them both, and then
she had left him with a gentle " Good-bye, Richard."

As he stared at the door which she had closed

257

258 JANE OGLANDER

quietly behind her, Richard Maule wondered
whether he would ever see her again. Indeed, he
was not sure that he wished ever to see Jane Og-
lander again.

He had stood up to bid his guest good-bye, but,
though he felt weak and a little dazed, he did not
sit down again in his padded armchair near the fire.
Instead, he went over to a glass case where were
kept a number of fine old snuff-boxes collected by
Theophilus Joy before there was a craze for such
things.

Opening the case, he brought out from the back
a snuff-box which had an interesting history. It
was believed to have been a gift from Madame du
Barri to Louis the Fifteenth. It was of dull gold,
embossed with fleurs-de-lys.

Richard Maule's faithful valet thought he knew
everything about his master that there was to know,
but there was one thing, a trifling thing, that Mr.
Maule had managed to keep entirely secret over
many years. It was an innocent, in fact a womanish
secret ; it was simply that sometimes, not very often,
he used a little rouge.

He kept the small supply he required, which lasted
\ him a long time, in the snuff-box he now held in his
hand. This box possessed the rare peculiarity of a
false bottom.

What the careful valet never suspected, had natu-
rally never entered into Dick Wantele's mind. All
he noted was that on certain occasions his cousin

JANE OGLANDER 259

was more flushed, and so looked in better health
than usual. Richard Maule's usual colouring was
a curious chalky white, and those of his visitors
whose breeding was perhaps not quite so perfect as
it might have been, almost always commented, either
to Mrs. Maule or to Dick Wantele, on Mr. Maule's
peculiar complexion.

He closed the glass case, and went over to a nar-
row mirror near the fireplace. There, in a few mo-
ments, he achieved his very rudimentary " make
up " with the aid of a small piece of cotton-wool.

Yes — now he looked better; placing the snufif-
box on the table which was drawn up close to his
chair, he rang, and then sat down.

He wished his man would come. He felt phys-
ically very uncomfortable and oppressed. The talk
with Jane Oglander had shaken him almost as much
— he was quite honest about the matter — as it had
shaken her.

Poor Jane! Dick's pretty Jane! How strange
that a woman like Athena should possess the power
of putting such a creature as was Jane Oglander to
torture.

Modern medical science has standardised the body
much as mechanical science has standardised the
most intricate machinery. Richard Maule, fortunate
in a physician who kept in touch with every new
discovery and palliative, had it in his power to fit
his physical self for any special effort, especially if
that effort were mental rather than physical.

26o JANE OGLANDER

The valet received careful instructions. Mr.
Maule would rest both before and after his light
dinner, till ten o'clock. Then, and not before, he
would be glad to see Mr. Wantele. He felt, how-
ever, too far from well to receive General Lingard,
as he so often did for a few moments in the evening.

Everything fell out as the master of Rede Place
had ordained it should do. With the help of cer-
tain colourless and odourless drops, he relieved the
oppression which was troubling him. He forced
himself to eat more than usual. He read with what
seemed to him fresh zest an idyll of Theocritus, and
then he waited, doing nothing, his eyes on the door,
till he heard his kinsman's light, familiar step on the
bare floor outside.

Dick Wantele came into his cousin's bedroom very
unwillingly. He wondered why Jane had stayed so
long with Richard. He feared she had told him of
her intention of breaking her engagement.

Wantele felt convinced that Richard Maule had
seen nothing of the drama which had been going on
round him — though never actually in his presence
— during Lingard's long sojourn at Rede Place.

Every day Lingard spent about an hour with his
invalid host, and Wantele was aware that those
hours had been very pleasant to Richard Maule.
The Greek Room had become a place where they all,
with the exception of Athena, had fled now and
again as if into sanctuary. There Jane, so Wantele

JANE OGLANDER 261

had soon divined, spent her only peaceful moments,
for her host was very dependent on her ; when with
him, she played chess or read aloud, always doing,
in a word, something- which perforce distracted her
mind from everything but the matter in hand.

But Richard Maule had been very unwell during
the last few days; compelled to take each night
the opiate which was the one habit — the bad habit
— he and his wife had in common. Conversation
after half-past nine or ten o'clock, even of the
mildest type, excited him, and gave him, even with
the aid of a powerful opiate, a restless, bad night.
Why then had he put off seeing Dick till ten
o'clock ?

The young man was in no mood to control him-
self, to assume the quiet, equable manner he always
assumed. The hour just spent with those two, —
with Athena and Lingard alone, — had tried his
nerves.

Mr. Maule was dressed in the evening clothes he
had put on early before saying good-bye to Jane Og-
lander. It was a little matter, but it surprised Wan-
tele; his cousin, as a rule, was always eager to get
into the dressing-gown in which he lived when up-
stairs.

" I had an odd conversation with Jane this even-
mg

Wantele nodded his head. Then it was as he had
feared, — she had told Richard.

" and I wish to talk the matter over with you,

262 JANE OGLANDER

Dick." He motioned the younger man to sit down,
and there was a long moment of silence between
them before he spoke again.

" Jane Oglander has got a very strange notion
into her head; and I should like to know if she said
anything of it to you. Perhaps " — a slight smile
came over his unsmiling lips — " perhaps I ought
not to call it Jane Oglander's notion, it is evidently
the notion — plot would be the better name — of an-
other person. Do you know anything of it, Dick? "
He looked fixedly at Wantele.

" No, Jane said nothing to me — nothing that
could be described in the terms you have used,
Richard."

Wantele's face was overcast with an expression
of anxiety and unease.

" Are you quite sure of that, Dick? I beg of you
not to spare me."

" Quite sure, Richard."

" Jane seems to think " Richard Maule was

still looking at his cousin intently, and Dick Wan-
tele moved under that look uncomfortably in his
chair. " Jane seems to think," Mr. Maule repeated
deliberately, " that it would be possible for my mar-
riage with Athena to be annulled. From what I
could make out, but Jane was — well, I'm afraid she
was very much distressed at proposing such a thing
to me, — she evidently thinks I ought to free my
wife, that is my duty to make it possible, in fact,
for Athena to start afresh — to marry again."

JANE OGLANDER 263

Good God!"

Yes, it's an odd notion — a very odd suggestion
to come from a nice young woman. And it grati-
fies me to see that you too are surprised, Dick."
There was an edge of irony in his low, tired voice.
" I was very much surprised myself — surprised,
first, that the notion had never before presented
itself to Athena's active brain; and even more sur-
prised," he spoke more slowly and all the irony
was gone, " that the suggestion should have come
in any way through Jane Oglander."

Dick Wantele turned deliberately away and
stared into the fire.

" I did not explain to her that what she was good

enough to suggest was quite — well, impossible.

That she had been, to put it crudely, misinformed."

Dick Wantele stared at his cousin. "You did

not explain that to her, Richard ? "

" No, I wished to consult you about the matter,
and hear what you had to say. The scheme of
course originated with Athena. Our English mar-
riage laws make life very difficult to the sort of
woman I have the honour to have for my wife."
The other made no answer.
" You never even suspected that such a plot
was in the hatching? " insisted Richard Maule. " I
want a true answer, mind ! "

Dick Wantele got up from his chair. He put his
hand on the back of it and stared down into his
cousin's face.

264 JANE OGLANDER

" Once, many years ago, Athena spoke to me as
if such a thing would be possible," he said.

He never lied, he never had lied — in words — to
Richard Maule, and he was not going to begin
now.

" You mean in Italy, when I was ill ? "

Wantele nodded his head, and then he felt
gripped — in the throes of a horrible fear. It was as
if a pit had suddenly opened between his cousin
and himself, between the man whom he loved, —
whose affection and respect he wished above all
things to retain, for they were all that remained
to him, — and his miserable self. He wondered
whether the secret thing he feared showed itself in
his face.

Richard Maule slowly got up. Wantele made
an instinctive movement to help him, but the other
waved him off, not unkindly, but a little impa-
tiently.

" Dick? " he said. " My boy, I want to ask you
a question — an indiscreet question. You need not
answer it, but if you answer it, please answer it
truly."

Wantele opened his mouth and then closed it
again. He could not think of the words with which
to entreat the other man to desist

Richard Maule, looking at him, knew the answer
to his question before he had uttered it, but even
so he spoke, obsessed by the cruel wish to knozv.

"In Italy ?" His voice sank to a muffled

JANE OGLANDER 265

whisper, but he did not take his eyes, his suffering,
sunken eyes, from Wantele's tortured face.

Still the other did not — could not — speak.

" I knew it. At least I felt sure of it." He
sighed a quick convulsive sigh, and then in mercy
averted his eyes.

" But never here ? " he muttered questioningly.
" Everything was over by the time we came back
here?"

" Yes, Richard. I swear it."

" I knew that too — at least I felt sure of it. I'm
afraid you must have suffered a good bit, Dick?"

The younger man nodded his head. " I have
loathed and I have despised myself ever since."

" I'm sorry you did that. I'm sorry I waited
till now to tell you that I knew, that I understood."

" How you must have hated me ! " said Wantele
sombrely.

" Never, Dick. I — I knew her by then. If you
had been the first " — he quickly amended his phrase
— " if I had been fool enough to believe you were
the first, I think it would have killed me. As it
was," his voice hardened, *' it only made me curse
myself for my blind folly — folly which brought
wretchedness and shame on you, Dick, and — and
now, I fear, on Jane Oglander " — he saw the con-
firmation he sought on the other's face. " It's about
Jane I wish to speak to you to-night. For a mo-
ment I ask of you to think of me as God "

Wantele stared at Richard Maule; it was the

266 JANE OGLANDER

first time his cousin had ever uttered the word in
his presence.

" If I were God — Providence — Fate — and gave
you your choice, would you choose that Lingard
should marry Jane or that you should marry her? "

And as Wantele still stared at him in amaze-
ment : " Take it from me — I have never deceived
you — that the choice is open to you, I don't wish
to hurry you. Take a few moments to think it
over."

" I — I don't understand/' stammered Wantele.

" There is no necessity for you to understand.
In fact I hope that, after to-night, you will dismiss
the whole of this conversation from your mind.
But I repeat — the choice is open to you."

And he added, musingly, " I think, Dick, that
with the others out of the way you could make
Jane happy — in time." But there was doubt —
painful, deliberating doubt, in his tone.

Wantele shook his head.

" I don't agree," he said shortly. " You see,
Richard, Jane " — he moistened his lips — " Jane's
never loved me. She loves Lingard. And so, if
God gave me the choice, I would give her to Lin-
gard."

"You think well of the man?" Maule spoke
lightly, and as if he himself had no reason to dis-
sent from any word commending the soldier.

" You mustn't ask me to judge Lingard " — the
words were difficult to utter, and he brought them

JANE OGLANDER 267

out with difficulty. " I've been there, you see. I
know what the poor devil's going through. I loved
you, Richard — but that didn't save me. Lingard
loved Jane, I believe he still loves her, and — and
I should take him to be a man jealous of his hon-
our— but neither his love nor his honour has saved
him."

Wantele began walking up and down the room
with long nervous strides. Then he stopped short
— " What is it you mean to do, Richard ? " he
asked.

Richard Maule hesitated. He knew very well
what he now meant to do, but he did not intend
that his cousin should have any inkling, either now
or hereafter, of his decision. And Dick, as he
knew well, was not easily deceived. Still, he put
his mind, the mind which was in some ways clearer,
harder, than it had been before his illness, to the
task.

" There are three courses open to me," he said
slowly. " The one is to allow matters to remain
as they are, in statu quo; the second is to do what
Jane Oglander suggests — allow my wife to bring
a suit for the dissolution of our marriage, and to
allow it to go undefended — it is that which I should
have done, Dick, had your answer been other than
it was."

"And the third course?" Wantele was looking
at his cousin fixedly.

" The third course, which I may probably adopt,

268 JANE OGLANDER

will be for me to begin proceedings for divorce.
I take it that Lingard knows nothing of the real
woman? I mean, he looks at Athena as she looks
at herself?"

Wantele nodded. That was certainly a good
way in which to describe Lingard's mental attitude.

" But I have not quite made up my mind as to
the best course," said Richard Maule. " I shall
think the matter over for a day or two. But I fear
— and I don't mind telling you, Dick, that the
thought isn't exactly a pleasant one to me — that
it must be what I said just now."

He beckoned to the other to come nearer, and
Wantele did so, his pale face full of pain and anger.

" I want you to understand," his cousin added,
in a low voice, " that when I've said that I've said
all. The business won't affect me as it would most
men. I never gave a thought to the world's opin-
ion in old days, and why should I do so now ? "

He spoke hesitatingly, awkwardly. It was dis-
agreeable to him to be thus lying to his cousin —
to be filling the heart of the man who loved him
with a flood of indignant pity and pain. But the
tragi-comedy had to be played out.

" I shall really feel very much more comfortable
when it's all over," he said. " I don't fancy even
lawyers waste as much time as they used to do
over this kind of thing. And this case is so simple,
so straightforward. I shall be sorry for the
Kayes. But they must have known it. I fancy

JANE OGLANDER 269

everybody in this neighbourhood knew it. People
will pity Athena ; they will agree that she had
every excuse "

He leant back in his chair. There was nothing
more to say.

"Shall I call Carver?" asked Wantele solici-
tously.

" No. Not now. But I should be obliged if you
will tell him that I shall want him in an hour. I
shall try and read for a while by the fire."

Richard Maule waited till he heard the sounds of
his cousin's quick footsteps die away. Then he
rose feebly and walked over to the recess which
had been fitted up as a medicine cupboard in the
days of his childhood, when drugs were more the
fashion than they are now.

In a wide-necked, glass-stoppered bottle were the
crystals of chloral which he had long used in pref-
erence to the more usual liquid form. He knew
to a nicety the dose which he himself could take
with safety, the dose which sometimes failed to
induce sleep.

He now measured out in his hand some three
times his usual dose.

Had Dick Wantele's answer been different, Rich-
ard Maule would have administered to himself the
crystals he now held in his hand. But Dick's de-
cision— what the man of average morality would
have regarded as his noble and unselfish decision

270 JANE OGLANDER

— had signed another human being's death-war-
rant.

The thought that this was so suddenly struck
Richard Maule as the most ironic of the many
avenging things he had known to happen in our
strange world. And, almost for the first time since
he had formed his awful conception of the mean-
ing of life, he knew the cruel joy of laughing with
the gods, instead of writhing under their lash.

As he shook the crystals into an envelope and
slipped it into his waistcoat pocket, he told himself
that revenge was at last to be his. The gods were
yielding him one of their most cherished attributes.

CHAPTER XIX

" The fact that the world contains an appreciable number of
wretches who ought to be exterminated without mercy when
an opportunity occurs, is not quite so generally understood as
it ought to be, and many common ways of thinking and feel-
ing virtually deny it."

Richard Maule turned the handle of his wife's
bedroom door. A glance assured him that the
beautiful room was empty. So far the gods whose
sport he believed himself to be had been kind, for
he had met no one during his slow, painful prog-
ress through the house, and Athena, as he knew
well, would not be up for another hour.

Standing just within the door, he looked round
the room with a terrible, almost a malignant, cu-
riosity. The fire had evidently just been built
up; it threw dancing shafts of light over the rose-
red curtains of the low First Empire bed, at once
vivifying and softening the brilliant colouring of
the room.

Till to-night, the owner of Rede Place had never
seen this oval bedchamber since it had been trans-
formed nearly nine years before in view of the
home-coming of his wife — the home-coming which
had been delayed for two years after their mar-
riage.

271

272 JANE OGLANDER

He had planned out with infinite care and Hn-
gering dehght every detail of the decoration, taking
as his model the bedchamber of the Empress Jo-
sephine at Malmaison. He and the expert who had
helped him in his labour of love had journeyed out
— even now he remembered the journey vividly — to
the country house near Paris where Napoleon spent
his happiest hours.

As for the room next door, the room which was
to have been his, it had long ago been dismantled,
and was now the sewing-room of his wife's maid.

Athena had arranged her life in a way that ex-
actly suited her. She had lived on unruffled by
the thunder-bolt, hurled unwittingly by herself,
which had destroyed him. But a tree blasted by
lightning outstands the most radiant of living
blossoms. . . .

He felt a wave of hatred heat his blood. Step-
ping slowly over the garlanded Aubusson carpet,
he moved across the room till he stood by the side
of the low, wide bed.

On a gilt-rimmed table was placed a crystal tray
he well remembered, and on the tray were a de-
canter of water, a medicine glass, and a bottle of
chloral. Above the wick of a spirit-lamp stood a
tiny gold kettle filled with the chocolate which Mrs.
Maule always heated and drank after she was in
bed.

Her intimate ways of life were very present to
her husband's memory. It was not likely that

JANE OGLANDER 273

time had modified any habit governing Athena's
appearance and general well-being.

He remembered the day they had first seen the
gold kettle. It had been at a sale held in the house
of one of those frail Parisian beauties who, fol-
lowing a fashion of the moment, had put up her
goods to auction. The notion that his wife should
possess anything that had once belonged to such a
woman had offended Richard Maule's taste, and
he had resisted longer than he generally did any
wish of hers. But she had cajoled him, as she
always in those days could cajole him into any-
thing.

He put out his thin hand and noted with satis-
faction that it was shaking less than usual. Slowly
he lifted back the lid of the gold kettle.

Yes — there was the chocolate still warm, still in
entire solution.

Straightening himself, Richard Maule stood for
a moment listening. . . .

Silence reigned within and without Rede Place.
Steadying his right hand with his left, he shook
the crystals of chloral he had brought with him into
the dark liquid. Then he turned, and walked lan-
guidly towards the fire. The emotion caused by his
short conversation with Dick Wantele had wearied
him.

Suddenly there fell on his listening ears tlie
sound of footsteps in the corridor. He knew them

274 JANE OGLANDER

for those of his wife. But it was hate, not fear,
that heralded Athena.

He turned round slowly, uncertain for a moment
how to explain his presence there.

She swept in — God! how superb, how radiantly
alive — and then gave a swift cry. " Richard ! You
have frightened me ! " But she faced him proudly.
" I've come up to find something I wish to show
General Lingard "

She turned on the lights, and Richard Maule,
looking at her fixedly, found his first quick impres-
sion modified. Her lovely face was thin and
strained. There were shadows under her dark, vio-
let eyes. But even so, how strong she was, how full
of vibrating vitality! By her side Richard Maule
felt that he must appear dead, or worse, ill to
death.

Athena was dressed in the purple gown she had
worn the night Lingard had first come to Rede
Place. So had she looked when she had opened
the door of the Greek Room and led in their — hers
and Richard's — illustrious guest.

There was something desperate, defiant in the
look she now cast on him. She was telling herself
how awful it was to know that this wreck of a man
standing before her could hold the whole of her
future in his weak and yet tenacious grasp! How
cruel that this — this cripple should possess the right
to grant or to deny what had become the crown-
ing wish of her heart!

JANE OGLANDER 275

Perhaps something of what was in her mind pen-
etrated to Richard Maule's quick brain.

" The aihng and the infirm," he said, staring at
her fixedly, "are treated by the kind folk about
them like children. They are never left alone. I
do not choose that our household should know that
I desire to have a private interview with you, and
so I thought the simplest thing would be to come
here and wait for you "

" What is it you wish to say to me ? " Her voice
shook with suspense. She clasped her hands to-
gether with an unconscious gesture of supplication.

" I have brought you — I have brought us all —
the order of release."

A feeling of exultant joy — of relief which
pierced so keenly that it was akin to pain, filled
Athena Maule's soul. She had indeed been well
inspired to tell Jane all that was in her heart — and
Hew's. And here was Richard actually saying so !
For, "You chose a most excellent Mercury," he
observed dryly.

"You mean Jane Oglander?" her voice again
shook a little. " She was not my messenger. She
asked my permission to speak to you "

" Yes, I mean Jane Oglander. She showed me
where my duty lay. For a while I hesitated be-
tween two courses — for you know, Athena, there
were two courses open to me."

She looked at him without speaking. How cruel,
how — how unmanly, of Richard to say this ! And

276 JANE OGLANDER

how futile. There was only one moment when he
could have divorced her. Providence had stood
her friend by choosing just that moment to make
him ill. Since then — she thought she had learnt
enough English law to know that — he would be
held to have condoned.

But her look made him feel ashamed. The jave-
lin does not thus play with its victim.

" I beg your pardon," he muttered almost in-
audibly.

" I know you have always hated me," she said
passionately.

" You have not known that always," he an-
swered sombrely — and for a moment she hung her
head.

" Perhaps now, Richard, we may be better
friends."

She reminded herself that in old days — in the
days when she had been his idol, his goddess — she
had had a certain contemptuous fondness for her
husband. She would be generous — now. Jane
had taught her that it was good to be generous.

How true a friend had Jane Oglander been to
her! Athena felt a rush of warm gratitude to
the woman who still — how strange, how absurd it
seemed — was engaged to Lingard. Jane, like the
angel she was, would help them — Athena and Hew
Lingard — over what must be for some time to
come very delicate ground. Their progress, albeit
that of happy and, what was so satisfactory, of in-

JANE OGLANDER 277

nocent lovers, would be hampered with small diffi-
culties. How fortunate it was, how more than for-
tunate, that Lingard's engagement to Jane had
not yet been publicly announced. . . .

" Have you told Dick ? " she asked nervously.
Her husband — he was still her husband — had
smiled strangely as only reply to her kindly words.
" Was it about that you wished to see him to-
night?"

No, I have not yet told Dick of my de-

'fc>'

cision."

" I suppose it can all be managed very quietly? "
she said plaintively. " I hope I shan't have to g-o
and appear before a judge — or shall I?"

Richard Maule looked at her thoughtfully.
" That is a thing I cannot tell you," he said slowly.
" Many would say to you most confidently — yes,
that you will have to appear before the Judge."

" I thought there was a thing in England called
taking evidence on commission. You yourself,
Richard, could not possibly appear in person. And
then — I want to know, it is rather important that
I should know " — her husband bent his head
gravely — "if there will be any delay?"

" You mean any lapse of time before the decree
can be obtained ? "

Her eyes dropped. " Yes, that is what I do
mean." In old days it had always been better tO'
be quite frank with Richard.

" I think not. In this kind of case I think there

278 JANE OGLANDER

is no delay. The legal procedure is quite simple."
He waited a moment. " You of course will bring
the suit, and I shall not oppose it. You see, Ath-
ena,— no doubt you have been at the pains to in-
form yourself of the fact, for to my surprise Jane
Oglander was aware of it, — the dissolution of a
marriage carries with it no stain — no stain, that is,
on the wife who has been so poorly used."

There came a look of raillery on his white face,
and Athena again told herself that he was very
cruel — cruel and heartless.

" The wife, I repeat, goes out into the world un-
sullied, ready, if so the fancy takes her, to become
another man's bride — his wife in reality as well as
in name."

He looked at her significantly, and added, more
lightly, " The world has become more liberal since
the days of my youth. I am sure there will be
great sympathy felt for you, Athena. Such a mar-
riage as ours is in truth a monstrous thing. I did
not need Jane to tell me that, though it was odd of
Jane to have thought of it."

There came over him a terrible feeling of lassi-
tude. " And now I'm afraid I must ask you to help
me to get back to my room."

This punishment he put on himself. He must
not be met coming out of his wife's room alone.

" Of course! " she cried eagerly. " You know I
would have done much more for you — I mean since
you became ill — if you had only allowed it ! But

JANE OGLANDER 279

Dick was always Jealous — Dick has always hated
me!"

" Surely not always?" he said mildly.

"Yes, always!"

He would not take her arm, or lean on her. She
simply walked by his side, her mind in a whirl of
amazement, of gratitude, of almost hysterical ex-
citement, till he dismissed her, curtly, at his door.

The hour that followed was perhaps the happiest
hour of Athena Maule's not unhappy life. It bore
a curious resemblance to that which had immedi-
ately followed Richard Maule's proposal of mar-
riage, the proposal for which her father and mother,
as well as herself, had watched and waited so anx-
iously. But now there was added what had been
quite lacking before — a sufficiently strong feeling
of attraction to the man who would place her in the
position she longed feverishly to enjoy and adorn.

That Lingard, in the throes of his passion for
her, should go through moments of acute self-
depreciation and remorse, only made her feel her
power, her triumph, the more.

She now came down to him gentle, subdued, as
he had never yet seen her, — Nature provides such
women with a wonderfully complex and full ar-
moury—and Lingard, alas! once more under the
spell, sprang towards her. The unexpected de-
parture of Jane to the Small Farm had angered
him.

28o JANE OGLANDER

" I have seen Richard." The pregnant words
were uttered solemnly. " I found him, for the
first time in my life, in — in my room. Jane spoke
to him to-day, and he is going to release me, to let
me out of prison — at last ! " and then, not till then,
Athena allowed herself to fall on Lingard's breast,
and feel the clasp of his strong arms about her.

It mattered naught to her that the man who was
now murmuring wild, broken words of love and
passionate joy at her release from intolerable bonds,
felt what the traitor feels — that his intoxication
was even now seared with livid streaks of self-
loathing and self-contempt.

She knew well that he would not trouble her over-
much with his remorse. She could almost hear him,
in his heart, say the words he had said the night
before Jane Oglander had come to disturb and
trouble the sunlit waters into which they two had
already glided. " It is not your fault, — any fault
there may be is mine."

But just before they said good-night Lingard
frightened Athena Maule, and sent her away from
him cold, almost angry.

" If I were the brave man men take me to be,"
he said suddenly, unclasping the hands which lay
in his, " I should go out into the night and shoot
myself."

She had made him beg, entreat, her forgiveness
for his wild, wicked words. But they frightened
her — dashed her deep content.

JANE OGLANDER 281

Athena Maule did not know Hew Lingard with
the intimate knowledge she had known other men
who had loved her. But there was this comfort —
about this man she would be able to consult Jane —
Jane who was so kind, so reasonable, and who only-
wished to do the best for them both.

She reminded herself that men are always blind
where women are concerned. If nothing else
would convince Hew Lingard that Jane, after all,
did not care so very much, then Jane must be
persuaded, after a decent interval, to marry Dick
Wantele. After what had happened to-day, every-
thing was possible. . . .

Athena, to-night, was " fey." She felt as if she
held the keys of fate in her hands. But even so,
she went on thinking of Lingard's bitter words
long after they had parted, and when, having dis-
missed her maid, she was heating the cup of choco-
late which sometimes sent her to sleep without an
opiate.

And then, as she lay down among her pillows,
there came over Athena Maule the curious sensa-
tion that she was not alone. Bay worth Kaye —
poor Bay worth, of whom she had thought so
kindly, so regretfully, only two nights ago —
seemed to be there, close to her, watching, wait-
ing. . . .

Athena did not believe in ghosts, and so she did
not feel frightened, only surprised — very much sur-
prised.

282 JANE OGLANDER

She turned on the light and sat up in bed.

This feeling of another presence close to her —
how strong it still was! — must be a result of the
emotion she had just gone through, of her excit-
ing little scene with Hew Lingard.

It was strange that she should think of Bay-
worth Kaye here, in this room where he had never
been but once, and then only for a moment on a
June night when they had both been more reckless
than usual. It would have been so much more nat-
ural to have felt a survival of Bayworth's presence
downstairs — when she had been in Lingard's
arms. . . .

Suddenly she was overwhelmed with an intense,
an overmastering drowsiness, and, quite uncon-
scious of what was happening to her, she fell back,
asleep.

The light above the low rose-red bed was still
burning when they found her in the morning.

CHAPTER XX

"Who spake of Death? Let no one speak of Death.
What should Death do in such a merry house?
With but a wife, a husband, and a friend
To give it greeting? . . ."

Richard Maule sat up in bed. He had taken a
rather larger dose of chloral than usual the night
before, and he had over-slept himself.

'Twixt sleeping and waking he had seemed to
hear a number of extraordinary sounds — they were,
however, sounds to which he had become accus-
tomed, for they were produced by the Paches'
motor.

Now his servant was drawing up the blinds, mov-
ing about the room with well-trained, noiseless
steps. It seemed to him that the man avoided look-
ing across at the bed ; but when, at last, his per-
sistent glance caused the servant to look round,
nothing could be seen in the other's impassive face.

" Is it a fine morning. Carver? "

*' No, sir — at least, yes, sir. But it's been rain-
mg.

" I thought I heard a car drive away a few mo-
ments ago, or did I dream it? "

The man hesitated.

283

284 JANE OGLANDER

" Yes, sir — perhaps you did, sir. Mr. Wantele
had the machine out to go for the doctor. Mrs.
Maulc is not very well, sir, and Mr. Wantele
thought he'd better fetch the doctor as quickly as
possible."

Carver's voice gained confidence. His master
was behaving " very sensible," and did not seem at
all upset. The upsetting part was to be left to Dr.
Mallet.

" I was to say, sir, that the doctor would like
to see you."

" Who went for the doctor ? " asked Richard
Maule suddenly.

*' Mr. Wantele himself, sir. I heard him say he
thought it would lose less time for him to go off
at once, than to wait and send anyone."

" And did Mr. Wantele bring the doctor back
with him?"

" Yes, sir, I think he did — I think they came back
together."

There was a knock at the door, and then the
murmur of words outside.

"Who's there?" called out Richard Maule in a
strong voice. " What's all that whispering about? "
He spoke querulously, as he sometimes did in the
morning.

"It's only I— Mallet!"

The doctor came in. He and Richard Maule
were old friends — in fact, contemporaries. But
there was a great difference between the two men —

JANE OGLANDER 285

the one was broad, ruddy, and did not look his
years ; the other was the wreck we know.

" I'm sorry to say Mrs. Maule is very ill." The
doctor plunged at once into the business which had
brought him. Long experience had taught him
the futility, the cruelty, of " breaking " bad news.

" What's the matter with her ? She's always en-
joyed remarkably good health." Richard Maule
moved a little in his bed.

" Yes, I should have taken her to be a remark-
ably healthy woman, though of course as you know
— we both know — she has always been very sleep-
less. Almost as if she caught insomnia from
you, eh ? "

The doctor's courage was beginning to fail him,
curiously. It was strange, it — it was horrible, the
hatred, the contempt Richard Maule felt for his
wife.

" Mallet — come here, closer. I believe you are
concealing something from me. If there's bad
news I'd rather hear whatever it is from you than
from Dick." Mr. Maule spoke in a hard, rather
breathless tone.

" There is something to hear. Your wife last
night took an overdose of chloral "

The doctor said no word of sympathy. The
words would have stuck in his throat. He knew
too well the real relationship of the husband and
wife. Richard Maule would receive plenty of con-
dolences from others. But even so, to learn sud-

286 JANE OGLANDER

denly of the death of a human being with whom
one has been associated over long years is always
a shock, is always painful.

Richard Maule straightened himself in bed.
" An overdose of chloral," he repeated, " then she's
—she's "

The other bent his head.

" She thought she would outlive me many
years."

The doctor looked thoughtfully at his patient.
He knew that illness of a certain type atrophies
the memory and the affections, while leaving unaf-
fected the mind and a certain fierce instinct of self-
preservation. Dr. Mallet was not so much shocked
or so much surprised by Richard Maule's remark
as a layman would have been.

Again the bereaved husband spoke, and this time
questioningly. "A peaceful death. Mallet? A
happy death ? "

" Yes — yes, certainly." Something impelled
him to add, " But a terrible thing when it comes
to one so young, so beautiful, as was your wife ! "

He compared the stillness, the equanimity, of
the man lying before him, with the awful agita-
tion of Dick Wantele — an agitation so terrible,
a horror so overwhelming, that it had confirmed
Dr. Mallet in a theory of his, a theory formed a
good many years ago, and of which he had some-
times felt ashamed.

But the mind of an intelligent medical man who

JANE OGLANDER 287

has enjoyed for many years a large family practice
becomes like one of those old manuals for the use
of confessors. His mind perforce becomes a store-
house of strange sins, of troubled, abnormal hap-
penings, which belong, from the point of view of
the happy and the sane, to a fifth dimension, unim-
agined, unimaginable. The wise physician, like the
wise confessor, does not allow his mind to dwell
on these things, but he does not make the mistake
of telling himself — as so many of us do — that they
are not there. The doctor had formed a suspicion,
which had now become a certainty. Yet he was
surprised by Richard Maule's next words.

" It must have been an awful shock to Dick,
Mallet. He was thrown so much more with Athena
than I could be of late years, though to be sure she
was a great deal away."

He waited a moment, and as the doctor made no
comment, " Although they didn't pull it off well to-
gether, still for my sake they both kept up a kind
of armed truce, eh. Mallet?" He looked search-
ingly at the other man. " I am telling you nothing
you do not know."

The other nodded gravely.

" Where's Dick now ? " Mr. Maule asked ab-
ruptly ; and the doctor saw that the thin hand hold-
ing the coverlet shook a little.

" I sent him off to get Ricketts. I thought it
better to give him something to do ; for as you say,
as you have guessed, he was very much over-

288 JANE OGLANDER

wrought and upset. Of course Ricketts can do
nothing, but I thought he had better be sent for.
And to tell you the truth, I wanted to give Dick
a job."

" Has anyone told General Lingard, Mallet?"

" No. He went out for a walk before breakfast
— an odd thing to do, but it seems he generally
does go out every morning. They're expecting him
in in a few minutes. Would you like me to tell
him?"

" I should be grateful if you would. And after
you've told him, Mallet, I should like to see him —
just for a few moments. My poor wife was very
fond of him. You know he's engaged to Jane Og-
lander?"

" Yes. Dick told me. But I understood it was
a secret? "

" Yes — yes, so it is."

"Mrs. Maule? Dead? An overdose of
chloral?"

Lingard repeated what the doctor had just said
very quietly, but he stammered out the words, and
his face had gone an ashen grey colour.

They were in the dining-room. Breakfast had
only been laid for two.

Dr. Mallet was surprised, that is as far as any-
thing of this kind could surprise him.

Here was a man used to facing death, and to
seeing death dealt out to others — nay, he had

JANE OGLANDER 289

doubtless in his time dealt out death to many. And
yet now this famous soldier was unmanned — yes,
unmanned was the word, by what was, after all, not
a very unusual accident.

" Yes, it's a terrible thing," the doctor said
briefly, " a terrible thing ! "

Lingard walked over to the sideboard. He
poured himself out some brandy, and drank it.

" You must forgive me. I had a touch of fever
yesterday — jungle fever," he said. " Your news
has given me a great shock."

" Yes, yes. Naturally."

" Will you tell me again ? I don't quite under-
stand."

He had come back and now stood facing Dr.
Mallet. His face was set, expressionless, but he
kept on opening and closing his right hand with
a nervous movement.

" It happened, as these things always do, in the
most simple way in the world. I had a similar case
six months ago. Poor Mrs. Maule took an over-
dose of chloral last night. When her husband first
became ill in Italy many years ago, she had a very
anxious time, and had to supervise, so I under-
stand, very inadequate nurses. Her anxiety, and
the strain generally, brought on insomnia, and the
doctors there — very wrongly from my point of
view — gave her chloral. It is a most insidious
drug, as you probably know. General Lingard. She
and Mr. Maule have both taken it for years."

290 JANE OGLANDER

" Then there is no doubt as to its having been an
accident?" Lingard's voice sank in a whisper.

" No doubt at all," said the doctor emphatically,
" I never saw a woman who, taking all things into
consideration, enjoyed life more than did Mrs.
Maule. The thought of suicide is out of the ques-
tion. The maid who saw her the last thing tells
me that she hadn't seen her so well or happy — gay
was the word the Frenchwoman used — for many
months. Before she went to bed, she wrote a letter
addressed to Miss Oglander at the Small Farm
which she gave orders should be taken over there
this morning. It went by hand nearly a couple of
hours before the sad truth was discovered."

" And then they sent for you at once ? "

Lingard felt as if he was in an evil dream. He
could not bring himself to believe, to face the fact
that Athena was dead — gone, for ever, out of his
life, out of all their lives.

" Yes. Mr. Wantele came and fetched me with-
out losing a moment," said the doctor gravely.
" But of course I saw at once that there was noth-
ing to be done. I have, however, sent for a col-
league of mine. Mr. Wantele, who, as you can
easily imagine, is very much — well, upset, went off
to fetch him. I wonder they're not back yet."

There was a long silence between the two men.

Dr. Mallet looked at the famous soldier with in-
terest and curiosity.

General Lingard was a remarkable-looking man

JANE OGLANDER 291

apart from his reputation. But there were lines on
his seamed face that told of strain — an older strain
than that induced by the shocking news which had
just been told him. He had now pulled himself to-
gether; he was doubtless annoyed with himself for
having been so terribly affected. But Mrs. Maule
possessed a very compelling, vivid personality —
even the doctor could not yet think of her as any-
thing but living.

" I'm afraid, General Lingard, that I must pre-
pare you for a rather painful ordeal. Mr. Maule
wishes to see you, and if possible at once."

The other made an involuntary movement of
recoil.

"To see me?" he repeated. "Why should he
wish to see me ? " And then he added hurriedly,
" But of course I'll go and see him. He and —
and Mrs. Maule " — he brought out her name with
an effort — " have both been most kind to me, though
our acquaintance has been short."

Again there was a pause. And then Lingard
said abruptly, " Well — shall I go up and see him
now ? I — I suppose you will come with me ? " If
restrained, there was no less an appeal in his
hushed voice.

" I'll just go up with you, and then I'm afraid
I shall have to leave you with him. Perhaps I
ought to tell you that Mr. Maule took the news
very quietly, General Lingard. He's in a sad state
— a sad state. A man in that condition does not

292 JANE OGLANDER

take things to heart in the same way that we who
are hale and strong do."

As they passed along the corridor, a housemaid
was engaged in drawing down the blinds, and it
was into a darkened room that Lingard was intro-
duced by the doctor.

Richard Maule did not rise to receive the condo-
lences of his guest. He was up and in his dressing-
gown, and he sat huddled in a deep invalid chair.
To Lingard's eyes he looked pitifully broken.

Various feelings — anger, contemptuous pity, and
an unwilling respect for the man who had, only the
day before, made up his mind to face the greatest
humiliation open to manhood — all these jostled one
another in the soldier's mind as he stood staring
down at his host.

Their hands just touched — Lingard's icy cold,
Richard Maule's burning hot.

" Thank you, thank you, General Lingard. I
felt sure that I should have your sympathy."

There was an odd gleam in the stricken man's
eyes, but the other, intent on preserving his own
self-command, saw nothing of it.

" Do sit down. Yes, it's a strange, a most
strange thing. She was always so strong, so well.
Poor Athena! Thanks to you in a great meas-
ure, her last weeks of life were very bright and
happy."

He looked furtively at Lingard. The man was
taking his punishment like a Stoic. But bah ! what

JANE OGLANDER 293

were his sufferings to those which Maule himself
had endured eight years before?

" I've troubled you to come to me," he continued,
" not so much to receive your kind sympathy, as to
speak to you of Jane — of Jane Oglander. She was,
as you know, my poor wife's best friend — and in a
very real sense. This will be a most terrible shock
to her. She would naturally receive the news better
from you than from anyone else, and I really asked
to see you that I might beg you to go at once, as
soon as possible, over to the Small Farm. Thanks
to my good friend Dr. Mallet, we have managed to
establish a cordon round the house. But of course
the truth will be known very shortly in the village —
if, indeed, it is not known there yet."

Lingard rose from the chair on which he had
reluctantly sat down in obedience to his host's wish.

" Yes," he said in a low, firm voice. " I will
certainly do as you wish. I know how truly, how
devotedly, Jane and Mrs. Maule loved one an-
other."

" It would be idle for me to pretend to you. Gen-
eral Lingard, now that you have formed part of
our household for nearly a month, that my poor
wife and I were on close or sympathetic terms — "
The other made a sudden restless movement. " It
is, however, a comfort to me to feel that last night,
for the first time for many years — " he was looking
narrowly at his victim, and Lingard fell into the
trap.

294 JANE OGLANDER

" I know — I know," he exclaimed hastily. " It
must be a comfort to you now, Mr. Maule, to feel
that you — that you — " he stopped awkwardly.

Richard Maule smiled a curious smile, and Lin-
gard felt inexpressibly shamed, humiliated. But
what was this Richard Maule was saying?

" Ah, so she told you ! Strange — strange are the
ways of the modern woman, General Lingard. But
I suppose that to Athena you and Jane Oglander
were as good as husband and wife. She thought
that what she could say without impropriety to the
one she could say to the other. Well, I won't keep
you now. I should be sorry indeed if Jane heard
what has happened from anyone but yourself."

CHAPTER XXI

"It is my life; I bring it torn and stained
Out of the battles I have lost and gained;
Once captured, won back from the enemy
At a great loss ; yet here I hold it still,
My own to render up as now I do;
I render it up joyfully to you,
Choosing defeat: do with it as you will."

To be out of doors, away from that strange, unreal
house of mourning, brought with it a sensation of
almost physical relief.

Lingard walked rapidly along, on his way to
the Small Farm. He was pursued, obsessed, by the
horror of the fact. He felt as if he had never be-
fore realised the awful obliteration of death.

Many a mother, wife, sister, kept among the
most precious of her treasures letters signed " Hew
Lingard " — letters speaking in high terms of a
dead son, of a dead husband, of a dead brother.
But those men and lads on whose dead faces he
had gazed had died the death which to Lingard and
his like puts the crown on a soldier's life. He had
lost comrades who had been dear to him and whose
loss he had lamented sorely. But never, never had
the sudden cancelling, so to speak, of a human be-
ing brought with it this sense of chilling horror, of
nothingness where so much had been.

And then there was something else — something

295

296 JANE OGLANDER

which at once revolted and distressed him inex-
pressibly. The immediate past, the events of the
last four weeks, became, in so far as they concerned
the woman who was now lying dead, both fantastic
and shameful.

Last night, for the first time, something of Ath-
ena's ruthless egotism had forced itself upon Lin-
gard's perception. Hitherto he had been too
deeply concerned with his own egotism, his own
cruelty, his own remorse, to give thought to hers.

That she should have used Jane Oglander as her
ambassador to Richard Maule had shocked, nay
more, had disgusted him, as soon as he had found
himself away from the magic of her presence.

Wholly absorbed in the future, Athena, after
her first words of eager gratitude for Jane's inter-
vention, had dismissed Jane from her mind, ex-
pelled her from her mental vision. Nay, she had
gone further, for in answer to a muttered word
from Lingard, she had at last said something which
had jarred his taste, as well as roused that instinc-
tive dog-in-the-manger attitude which slumbers in
all men with regard to any woman who has been
beloved.

" Jane," Athena had said impatiently, " will end
by marrying Dick Wantele. But for me she would
have done it long ago ! " And angrily the listener's
heart, his memory, had given Athena the lie.

After Mrs. Maule had left him the night before,
Lingard had gone out of doors,- and now chance

JANE OGLANDER 297

brought him to the spot where he had stood for a
long time staring at the long low house which now
sheltered Jane Oglander, driven there, as he knew
well, by his base, it now seemed his inconceivable,
cruelty. How clearly he had visualised her last
night! Imagining her as widely awake as he was
himself, but denied by a thousand scruples from the
relief of being able to go out, alone, into the dark-
ness and solitude. If they had met there last night,
he might at least have told Jane of his fight — of his
losing fight for his lost honour. Now she would
always believe that he had surrendered without a
struggle.

He walked on and into the curious, formal little
garden of the Small Farm, even now gay with late
autumn blossoms. The beams of a wintry sun
lay athwart the picturesque old house.

From the first, — nay, not quite at first, but very
soon, — Lingard had disliked Mabel Digby. He had
thought of her as an ally of Dick Wantele, and at
a time when he was still trying to lie to himself as
to the nature of his attraction to Athena, he had
often seen her clear brown eyes fixed on him
with a puzzled, troubled expression. Even now
he could not be sorry she was ill. He felt that to-
day he could not have faced those honest, question-
ing eyes.

Lingard walked up to the porch, and rang the
bell. By an odd twist, he began to think, as he
stood there, how it would have been with him had

298 JANE OGLANDER

it been Jane who was lying dead. Clearly he real-
ised that Jane, dead, would still in a sense have
been to him alive. But Athena? Athena was gone
— gone into nothingness. He felt a tremor run
through him, a touch of the old fever. . , .

" Miss Oglander ? I think she's upstairs with
Miss Digby, sir. But I'll fetch her down. Will
you come into the drawing-room ? "

Lingard went through the hall into the long sit-
ting-room which he remembered, as men remember
a place to which they have been in dreams. Jane
had brought him there on the first morning after
her arrival at Rede Place. They had not had a
very pleasant walk, for each seemed to have so cu-
riously little to say to the other, and Lingard, at
least, had hailed with pleasure the moment when
they had gone into the house.

He remembered that he had been amused and
touched by the many mementoes of the Indian Mu-
tiny the room contained — quaint coloured prints and
amateurish drawings of Delhi, before and during
the great epic struggle, curious engraved portraits
of the various Mutiny veterans under whom Mabel
Digby's father had fought, — signs of a hero-wor-
ship the old soldier had transmitted to his daughter.

He also recalled the feeling of acute irritation
with which he had noticed Mabel Digby's look of
shy congratulation at Jane and at himself. She had
been at once too shy and too well-bred to make any
allusion to an engagement which was not yet an-

JANE OGLANDER 299

nounced, but there had been no mistaking her
glance, her smile.

How long ago all that seemed! It might have
been years — instead of only weeks.

He went and stood by the fireplace, and then
stared up at Outram's portrait. Was that man, and
were that man's comrades and contemporaries,
whose virtues as well as whose courage have be-
come famous as the virtues and the courage of
ancient legendary heroes — were they untouched by
the failings and weaknesses of our poor common
humanity? It was certainly not true of their own
immediate predecessors, or — or of their successors.

A click of the latch — and Jane came into the
room. She was pale, but her manner had regained
its old quietude and gentleness.

As she came towards him and saw his ravaged
face, a feeling of great concern, of pity so maternal
in texture that it swept away every other feeling
from her heart, almost broke down her new, unnat-
ural composure.

She wished ardently — and Jane was full of hid-
den fire — to make everything easy for him. But
oh! she could not bear him to look as he now
looked.

It was not in order that Hew Lingard should
look, should feel, as he was now looking and feel-
ing that she had made the great renouncement —
the renouncement which Wantele had implored her

300 JANE OGLANDER

with such fierce, passionate energy to refrain from
making. Was it possible that Wantele had been
right, and that she was doing an evil thing by the
man she loved? — such was the agonised question
which went through Jane Oglander's mind as she
advanced quietly towards him.

Only a few moments ago she had destroyed Ath-
ena's note of wild joy, of gratitude to herself. As
she had watched the paper burn, as she had seen
Athena's delicate, graceful monogram vanish in the
flame, Jane had felt as if her heart was shrivelling
up with it.

She had been in the room but a very few mo-
ments, and already her presence was bringing peace
to Lingard's seared unhappy soul.

There was nothing on her face to show the con-
flicting emotions with which she was being shaken,
and to him she breathed renunciation, serenity.
How amazing to remember that only yesterday her
nearness had brought him intolerable unease, as
well as keen shame. Now he felt as if a touch from
her hand would cure him of all his shameful ills.

Jane Oglander's pity, and he knew that she was
very pitiful, had the divine quality of raising, in-
stead of debasing, as does so much of the pity
lavished on others in this sad, strange world.

She held out her hand ; he felt it fluttering for a
moment in his strong grasp, but alas! it was her
unease, her miserable misgiving that she now be-
stowed on him. There came over her eyes and

JANE OGLANDER 301

brow a look of suffering, and Lingard dropped her
hand quickly. No — he could not tell now, at once,
what he had come to tell her.

" Will you come out with me, Jane ?" he asked
abruptly.

*' Yes. Of course I will." It seemed a long,
long time since he had asked her to do anything —
with him.

They went out into the little hall. As he helped
her on with her coat, she made a slight shrinking
movement which cut him shrewdly; he reminded
himself that she had the right to hate, as well as to
despise, him.

With common consent they turned into the lonely
country road, instead of under the beeches of Rede
Place, and as they walked, each kept rather further
from the other than do most people walking side
by side. Jane respected his moody silence, and her
memory went back to the first walk he and she had
taken together on the day of his triumphant return
home.

It had been a clear starry London night In au-
tumn, and they had crossed from the shabby, quiet
little street where she lived to that portion of the !
Embankment which lies between the river and St.
Thomas's Hospital, — a stone-flagged pavement
open only to walkers.

There Lingard had linked his arm through hers,
and the movement had given her a delicious thrill
of joy, deepening in her that protective instinct

302 JANE OGLANDER

which makes every woman long for the man she
loves to cling to her.

As they had paced up and down, so happily alone
in the peopled solitude London offers to her lovers,
Jane's tender heart could not forget what lay so
near, and she had compared her blest lot with that
meted out to the suffering and the forlorn, who lie
in their serried ranks in the wards she so often
visited.

How gladly now she would have changed places
with the one among them who was nearest to death.

They were close to the Rectory gate, and Jane
suddenly remembered that Lingard had promised
to go in and see Mrs. Kaye this morning. She had
forced herself to ask him to do so, and she remem-
bered now that he had assented to her wish with
almost painful eagerness. Perhaps he thought she
meant him to go there with her. That would ex-
plain his coming to the Farm so early.

" Mr. Maule asked me to come to you," he said
at last, breaking the long oppressive silence. " He
thought — God knows why he thought it! — that a
certain terrible thing which has happened — which
happened last night — would reach you best from
me."

"Something which happened last night?" Jane
repeated in a low voice. " I know it already. Ath-
ena wrote to me."

She turned and faced him steadily.

" Don't look like that, Hew. I— I can't bear it.

JANE OGLANDER 303

I know you couldn't help what's happened. I know
you never loved me in the way a man ought to love
a woman whom he is going to marry."

" I did," he said hoarsely. " I swear to God
I did!"

She shook her head.

** We both made a mistake," she answered stead-
ily— " and it is fortunate that we discovered it in
time. After all, engagements are often broken off,
and we were engaged such a little — little while. I
am glad Mr. Maule has made up his mind to do
what is right."

She flushed for the first time a deep red. The
discussion was hateful to her.

" You are going to the Rectory to see Mrs.
Kaye? I won't go in with you, but I will wait here
till you come out; and then we will walk together
to Rede Place. I am going away to-day, back to
London, and I can't go away without saying good-
bye to them. I promised Athena I would come for
a few moments "

The emotion she was restraining, the tears she
kept from falling, stained her face with faint
patches of red, and thickened her eyelids. The
measure of beauty which was hers, that beauty
which owed so much to her ever-varying expres-
sion, was wholly obscured to-day.

Lingard felt intolerably moved. It was horrible
to him to feel that he had bartered the right, the
right he had owned for so short a time and had

304 JANE OGLANDER

yielded so lightly, of taking Jane into his arms,
and yet he felt he had never loved her as he loved
her now, defenceless, before him. He could not
wound and shock her by telling her of the terrible
thing which had happened. Mr. Maule had asked
too much of him.

His mind turned with relief to the task Jane had
set him to do. In this matter of comforting the
mother of a dead soldier son he would be able
surely to bear himself in the old way.

He opened the Rectory gate and walked up,
alone, the winding path which led to the front door.

Yes — Kaye was the name of the poor young fel-
low who had died at Aden. What were his disa-
greeable associations with the name of Bayworth
Kaye?

He remembered.

For the first time since the doctor had told Lin-
gard of what had happened the night before, it
seemed as if Athena, her actual physical presence,
was close to him again. He could almost hear the
sound of her melodious voice as it had sounded
when, thrilling with anger and scorn, she had told
him of the gossip there had been about herself
and this very man, this young Kaye, whose subse-
quent death seemed to arouse so much pity and
concern in the neighbourhood.

Mrs. Kaye had been watching and waiting for
General Lingard since ten o'clock. She had spent

JANE OGLANDER 305

the hour in her shabby drawing-room going and
coming from one window to the other, a tall, gaunt
figure, clad in the deepest black.

When she saw him walking through the garden
she retreated far back into the room, and there
came into her face a look of fierce relief. She had
so greatly feared that Mrs. Maule would prevent
the fulfilment of his promise.

She was, as we know, a woman who made plans,
and who carried out her plans to a successful issue.
The rector, in his own way as bereaved, as heart-
broken as was his wife, was in his study. She had
told him curtly that he must stay there until she
came and fetched him.

The cook had been sent into the market town
four miles away, and the village girl, who was be-
ing trained with a kind of hard efficient care into
a parlourmaid, had received her instructions.

General Lingard was to be shown straight into
the drawing-room on his arrival; and then the girl
was to start immediately on an errand to the vil-
lage.

There was to be no eavesdropper at the inter-
view Mrs. Kaye intended to have with the great
soldier who was coming to offer his condolences on
the death of her only son.

Strange rumours had reached the rectory, or
rather Mrs. Kaye, for the rector had known noth-
ing of them — rumours which she had drunk in with
cruel avidity, rumours of General Lingard's ex-

3o6 JANE OGLANDER

traordinary absorption in his beautiful hostess, of
the long walks and drives they took together, of
the many hours they spent alone in her sitting-
room.

As yet, however, not even village gossip had
linked together the names of Lingard and Jane
Oglander. That secret had been well kept, as are
most innocent secrets.

At last the young servant announced, in a nerv-
ous, fluttered voice, " General Lingard, please,
ma'am."

As Lingard walked in, as he saw the figure in
deep mourning, his face relaxed and softened.

He himself came of clerical stock. His grand-
father had been one of the Golden Canons of Dur-
ham, and as a child, as a youth, he had lived much
in the more prosperous section of the Church of
England. Often in the holidays he had accom-
panied relations on calls to rectories and vicarages
which were as poverty-stricken, as full of self-re-
specting economy, as was this house. In those days
all Lingard's instinct had stood up in rebellion
against the clerical atmosphere in which he was
being bred. But with years there came across him
a queer feeling of loyalty to the cloth, to what had
been his father's cloth.

Poor young Kaye! And yet most fortunate
young Kaye. Such was Lingard's involuntary
thought as he glanced round the homely room —
for the lad whose mother stood there mourning him

JANE OGLANDER 307

had known that a devoted father and mother
watched with solicitude, with pride, with anxiety,
every step of his career.

How different from Lingard's own case! — de-
prived of his parents in babyhood, and with none
to care whether he did well in his profession or
whether he went to the devil — as he had so very
nearly gone to the devil some twenty years ago.

As he shook hands with the grey-haired woman
who stood there with so tragic, so oppressed, a
look on her face, there came across him the thought
of his own long dead mother, and for a moment
he was freed of the terrible happenings of the last
few hours.

With an effort he set himself to remember all
that he had heard to Bayworth Kaye's credit.
Those who had mentioned him had nearly all of
them alluded to his reckless bravery, to his indiffer-
ence to physical danger, to his Victoria Cross. . . .

Ah! it was easy to utter a eulogy of such a son
when speaking to the bereaved mother. It was so
strange, so tragic, too, that he should have died in
the way he had died, of fever. Lingard remem-
bered hearing of the alternate hours of anxiety, of
hope, and lastly of despair, through which the un-
fortunate parents had passed between the time they
had first heard of their son's illness and of his lonely
death.

Mrs. Kaye listened to the kind, heartfelt words
of condolence, of respectful pity for herself and

3o8 JANE OGLANDER

for her husband, in silence ; and the eyes which
she kept fixed on Lingard's face were tearless and
very bright. Lingard, moving a little uneasily
under their fixed scrutiny, asked himself whether
she really heard and understood what he was
saying? So far, she had not asked him to sit
down.

He remembered a long interview of this kind he
had had with another mother. That poor lady had
received him surrounded by mementoes of a son
who had been a trusty and sure comrade to him-
self. He recalled the photographs which had been
brought out for his inspection, the floods of tears
which had punctuated each of his words. But Mrs.
Kaye was far more truly stricken than that other
mother had been — Mrs. Kaye required no photo-
graph of her son to remind her of his face. She
had not yet been granted the relief of tears. Hers
was evidently grief of a terrible, a passionate in-
tensity.

" It is good of you to say these things to me,
General Lingard — and to spare the time to come and
see me," she said at last. " But I should not have
troubled you — I should not have presumed to trou-
ble you, were it not that I wish to consult you about
what is to me a very important matter."

He bowed his head gravely, and sat down in the
shabby armchair to which she rather imperiously
motioned him.

" I am entirely at your service," he said quietly.

JANE OGLANDER 309

No doubt she wanted some message transmitted to
the War Office.

" I have no one else to ask or to consult," she
said in low, rapid tones. " It is not a matter about
which I desire to trouble my husband, and I am
glad to think that he knows, as yet, nothing of
what I am going to say to you. Whether he has to
learn it or not will depend, General Lingard, on
your advice,"

Lingard looked at her attentively. He was puz-
zled and rather disturbed by her words.

" When they told my son he was not likely to
live," she said, " he persuaded the doctor to allow
him to write a letter to me, his mother."

She stopped a moment, then went on steadily :
" In it he made a certain request. It is about that
request I wish to consult you. General Lingard. I
wish to know whether you consider that I ought to
be bound by his wishes. My son desired that his
Victoria Cross and one or two other things which
he greatly valued, and which we, his parents, natu-
rally value even more than he valued them, should
be handed over, given by us to — to a lady."

Lingard felt a sudden feeling of recoil from the
woman who sat opposite to him, watching for his
answer. Then it was jealousy, pathetic but rather
ignoble jealousy, that was making poor Mrs. Kaye
look as she looked now — jealousy rather than
grief. . . .

There came the sound of a motor-car in the

310 JANE OGLANDER

road which was above the level of the rectory
garden.

It stopped, and Lingard saw through the window
Wantele jump out and cross over to where Jane
Oglander was walking up and down.

They spoke together for some moments, and Lin-
gard felt a great lightening of his heart. Wantele
must be telling Jane the awful thing which had hap-
pened, and he, Lingard, would be spared the dread-
ful task.

Jane came up close to the car. Lingard could
not see the expression on her face. At last, or so
it seemed to him, they both got in under the hood.

So Jane, breaking her promise to wait for him,
had gone on to the house?

Making a determined effort over himself, Lin-
gard forced himself to return to the matter — the
painful, the rather absurd matter — in hand.

" I suppose you know all the circumstances," he
began awkwardly.

" The circumstances, General Lingard, are per-
fectly simple." The fingers of Mrs. Kaye's thin
right hand plucked nervously at the buttons which
fastened her black woollen bodice. " The lady in
question is a married woman. She got hold
of my boy, and she bewitched him into forgetting
the meaning of what I thought he valued more than
life itself — his honour."

She rose up and stared down at Lingard, and
there was a terrible look on her face.

JANE OGLANDER 311

" Having amused herself for the best part of
a year — having got from him all she wanted — she
threw my son aside like a squeezed orange. His
heart was broken, General Lingard. I cannot doubt
he allowed himself to die. And it is to this woman
that he desires I should give all that he has left
me to remember him by "

Lingard had also risen to his feet.

" You are bringing a very serious accusation,"
he said coldly, " against a lady for whom, as you
yourself admit, Mrs. Kaye, your son entertained
a great regard. Young men — forgive me for re-
minding you of what you must know as well as I —
sometimes form strange, secret attachments which
are, believe me, often as entirely unprovoked as — as
— they are unrequited. I have known more than
one such instance."

She drew from her breast a piece of paper.

" I ask you, nay, after what you have just said I
implore you, to read what is written here "

She almost thrust it into his reluctant hand.

" I don't wish to trouble you with my private
concerns, but read this — read these lines," her
shaking finger drew his troubled eyes to the words :
" Do not be hurt, mother. You've never under-
stood. In the sight of God Athena is my wife.
She was nothing — she was never anything, to that
wretched, cruel old man whose name she bears —
and to whom she is so good when he allows her
to be."

312 JANE OGLANDER

Lingard read the words over twice very deliber-
ately. Then he folded the letter, and handed it
back to its owner.

" This letter," he said firmly, " should be de-
stroyed. I am sorry you showed it me, Mrs. Kaye.
It was meant for no eyes but yours."

" Ah ! " she cried, and tears at last welled up into
her eyes. " You blame my poor boy ! But he told
me nothing I did not already know "

She went to the fire and, stooping down, held
the piece of paper over the tongues of shooting
flame till he thought her hand must surely be
scorched.

She turned on him. "There! It's gone!" she
exclaimed. " No one but you. General Lingard,
and I, his mother, will ever know that my son wrote
that letter. Perhaps I was wrong to have shown it
to you. But what you said — but what you said " —
she gave a hard, short sob — " hurt me, made me
angry. I did not know how else to make you un-
derstand. And now, if you say I ought to do what
my son asks, I will abide by your decision."

" In your place," he said quietly, " I should cer-
tainly carry out your son's wishes."

But as the mother looked into Lingard's fiercely
set face, she told herself, with sombre triumph, that
her boy was avenged.

At the door he turned and faced her.

" I cannot help wondering," he said in measured
tones, " whether you have heard what has hap-

JANE OGLANDER 313

pened at Rede Place? Mrs. Maule took an over-
dose of chloral last night. She was found dead
this morning."

Mrs. Kaye was for a moment utterly astounded
by the news. Then, quickly gathering herself to-
gether, she said in a low dry tone, " I will ask you
to believe. General Lingard, that I was ignorant
of this — this judgment when I spoke to you just
now."

Lingard made no answer; he looked all round
him like a man who seeks some way of escape.

Suddenly there came into his view the figure of
Jane Oglander, moving patiently up and down on
the road beyond the gate.

So she had waited for him. . . .

As Mrs. Kaye went down the passage leading to
her husband's study, she murmured once or twice,
" Vengeance is mine ! " It was a comfortable
thought that she was alone in the house. She did
not consider her husband anyone. " Vengeance is
mine ! " she repeated the words in a louder tone.
And then she went into the rector's study and very
quietly told him what she had just heard.

Mr. Kaye was truly shocked and grieved. He
had always liked Athena. She had always been
quite civil to him, and so kind, so remarkably kind,
to his dear dead son.

He got up and began looking for his hat. He
hoped his wife would not interfere, and prevent

314 JANE OGLANDER

his doing what he thought right. It was surely his
place, as the clergyman of the parish, to go up to
Rede Place and ofifer his sincere condolences to
the bereaved husband.

THE END.

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